IvIBRARY 

OF  TIIK 

University  of  California. 

Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WAISWORTH. 

Received  October,  1894. 
Accessions  No. Sls'^^U'-      Class  No. 

Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

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http://www.archive.org/details/christinchristiaOOhuntrich 


CHRIST  IN  THE  CHRISTlAxN  YEAR 


THE  LIFE  OF  MAN 


SERMONS    FOR   LAYMEN'S    READING 

(ADVENT  TO  TBINITT) 


Rt.  Rev.  F.  D.  HUNTINGTON,  D.D.  ^ 


BISHOP  OF  CBNTBAIi  NEW  TOEK 


CD 

>*^  at  TSK     ■^^      ^%  CO 

>—< 


gjriVBESITY: 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  BUTTON  AND  COMPANY 

713  Broadway 

1878 


n^y,if 


Copyright 
E.  P.  DUTTON  &  CO. 

1877 


Bxrf37 


I  This  volume  owes  its  existence  to  a  letter  received  by  the  author, 
some  months  ago,  from  a  presbyter  in  one  of  our  western  dioceses 
highly  esteemed  in  the  Church  at  large  and  of  wide  experience  in  its 
service.  He  believes  that  there  is  still  need  of  printed  sermons  to  be 
read  in  churches,  and  gives  some  reasons  why  the  present  publica- 
tion should  be  made.  Although  it  would  not  have  been  undertaken 
but  for  his  advice  and  request,  he  is  in  no  manner  responsible  for 
what  the  book  contains. 

This  suggestion  having  been- .adopted,  it  became  necessary  to 
accept  whatever  limitations  it  imposed  both  as  to  matter  and  method. 
Preferences  which  otherwise  might  be  reasonably  indulged,  as  re- 
spects topics  and  their  treatment,  lines  of  abstract  thought  and 
completeness  of  discussion,  must  to  some  extent  be  sacrificed.  The 
frequent  appearance  of  italics,  a  blemish  on  the  pages  to  the  eye  of 
taste,  is  to  be  accounted  for  in  the  same  way.  It  was  also  thought 
that  to  most  readers  certain  obvious  aspects  and  explanations  of  the 
principal  Church-seasons  might  be  supposed  to  be  already  suflSciently 
lamiliar. 

Let  it  be  stated  as  according  to  the  author's  general  conception  of 
preaching  that  the  aim  in  each  individual  discourse  should  be  rather 
to  give  a  sense  of  reality,  in  the  particular  truth  there  presented,  than 
to  exhaust  subjects;  to  create  in  the  hearers  as  vivid  and  abiding  an 
impression  as  may  be  of  some  distinct  department  of  Christian  doc- 
trine or  duty,  comprehending  only  such  relations  of  idea  and  fact  as 
seem  most  suitable  to  that  end.  Several  important  topics,  pertaining 
to  the  domain  of  Church-instruction,  are  reserved  for  another  volume. 

The  author  ought  frankly  to  add  that  in  allowing  these  sermons, 
many  of  which  were  written  for  a  parochial  ministry,  to  go  to  pres*, 
he  could  not  bring  himself  to  consider  merely  their  use  in  lay  read- 
ing.     He  would  modestly  hope  that  some  of   them,   while  help 


IV 

ing  a  soul  here  and  there  to  live  heartily  for  God,  may  also  at 
least  indicate  a  belief  that  the  men  of  this  country  and  this  time, 
especially  if  somewhat  thoughtful  and  right-hearted,  are  to  find  a 
solution  of  many  theological  and  speculative  difficulties  by  subor- 
dinating everything  else  in  Christian  teaching  to  the  fact  of  the 
Incarnation  of  our  Lord,  Son  of  Grod  and  Son  of  Man,  and  to  the 
power  of  His  person  as  the  Giver  of  life,  the  only  true  and  eternal 
life,  through  the  divine  channels  of  His  grace,  to  mankind.  The 
best  promises  of  the  thinking  and  working  world  appear  to  encour- 
age this  anticipation.  May  it  not  be  expected  that,  as  this  profound 
and  inspiring  verity  takes  its  due  place,  many  doubts  arising  in  the 
spheres  of  physical  science  and  metaphysical  philosophy  will  dis- 
appear, not  by  a  process  of  dialectics  or  controversy  but  by  a  fair 
construction  of  that  Word  which  is  **  the  Word  of  life"  just  because 
it  has  for  its  substance  Him  who  is  the  living  and  everlasting  "Word 
made  flesh"  and  "dwelling  among  us"? 

It  would  seem  to  follow  naturally  in  the  line  of  this  view  that  the 
higher  rather  than  the  lower  range  of  motives  is  to  be  addressed 
by  the  pulpit,  in  appeals  for  faith  and  obedience,  for  manliness  and 
godliness.  Had  there  been  in  the  homiletics  and  general  religious 
literature  of  the  last  two  hundred  years  a  more  distinct  and  rugged 
realism,  a  more  visible  relation  between  the  supernatural  elements  of 
revelation  and  the  production  of  character  in  Christian  people,  and 
had  piety  been  represented  rather  as  spiritual  health  in  the  entire 
man  than  as  a  special  and  somewhat  exceptional  not  to  say  abnor- 
mal sentiment,  the  scepticism  of  the  "common- sense"  school  in 
England  with  the  humanitarian  and  literary  rationalism  of  Germany, 
France,  and  the  United  States  would  have  had  less  plausibility  and 
been  less  destructive. 

F.  D.  H. 


CONTENTS. 


11 

29 

41 
Man. 

55 


FAGB 

Advent  Stjot)ay, 1 

Christ's  First  Coming. 

Second  Sunday  in  Advent, 
Christ's  Second  Coming. 

Third  Sunday  in  Advent,  .        .        .        . 
Christ  in  Judgment. 

FouKTii  Sunday  after  Advent,   . 

The  Highteousness  of  God,  and  Uprightness  in 

Chkistmas-Day,     .         .        . 
The  Man  Christ  Jesus. 

Sunday  after  Christmas,     .... 
Faith  Outliving  its  Special  Occasions. 

Second  Sunday  afier  Christmas, 

E"ew  and  Old. — Beginning  of  the  Year. 

First  Sunday  after  Epiphany,    . 
The  Epiphany  Goodness. 

Second  Sunday  after  Epiphany, 

The  Soul  Sought  by  Christ  and  Seeking  Him 

Third  Sunday  after  Epiphany,  . 

The  Law  of  Christian  Enlargement. 

Fourth  Sunday  after  Epiphany, 
The  Saviour  in  the  Ship. 


66 
73 
83 
94 
105 
117 


VI  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Fifth  Sunday  after  Epiphany,  ....    128 
Two  and  Two  before  His  Face. 

Sixth  Sunday  after  Epiphany,  ....     141 
Instant  Obedience. 

Septuagesima  Sunday, ,     152 

The  Foremost  Desire. 

Sexagesima  Sunday, 164 

Sons  and  Daughters  in  the  Family  of  Christ. 

QUINQUAGESIMA   SuNDAY, 175 

One  Weak  Spot. 

Ash- Wednesday, 186 

The  Yoke  and  Burden  ah-eady  Easy  and  Light. 

First  Sunday  in  Lent, 196 

The  Throng  and  the  Touch. 

Second  Sunday  in  Lent, 207 

Supplication  the  Church's  Power. 

Third  Sunday  in  Lent, 219 

Purity  and  its  Safeguards. 

Fourth  Sunday  in  Lent,      .        .        .        ^        .    232 
Strength  out  of  Weakness. 

Fifth  Sunday  in  Lent, 243 

A  Heavenly  Mind  Here. 

Palm  Sunday,  or  Sunday  before  Easter,  .         .     255 
Spiritual  Waste  and  Wealth. 

Good  Friday, 265 

The  Water  and  the  Blood. 

Easter-Day, 280 

Tlie  Power  of  the  Hesurrection. 


CONTENTS. 

Vll 

First  Sunday  after  Easter,        . 
How  the  Kisen  Christ  is  Seen. 

PAGE 

.    293 

Second  Sunday  after  Easter,     . 
What  is  Heaven  ? 

.    307 

Third  Sunday  after  Easter, 

Why  there  will  be  no  more  Sea. 

.     320 

Fourth  Sunday  after  Easter,    . 
Alone  at  Athens. 

.     335 

Fifth  Sunday  after  Easter, 

The  Human  Society  in  the  City  of  God. 

.     350 

Ascension-Day,      ...... 

The  Heavens  023ened. 

.     362 

Sunday  after  Ascension,     .... 
Unprofitable  Gazing. 

.    372 

Whcts  UN-Day, 

Leadings  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

.       384: 

[Uiri7BIlSIT7l 


CHEIST'S  FIEST  COMING. 

Advent  Sunday, 

"  The  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us,  and  we  beheld 
His  glory."— >S^.  John  i.  14. 

By  a  People  numbering  nearly  four  millions  of  souls 
there  is  a  celebration  to-day  of  the  coming  into  this 
world  of  the  greatest  and  best  of  all  the  Sons  of  men. 
What  is  wonderful,  if  we  judge  in  the  way  the  world 
has  been  apt  to  judge  of  men  these  thousands  of  years, 
is  that  He  is  the  greatest  hecause  He  is  the  best.  Under 
that  order  of  ideas  which  ruled  till  He  came,  still  hold- 
ing its  own  in  vast  dull  communities  where  He  is  un- 
known or  unwelcomed,  and  each  trying  to  maintain 
itself  within  the  bounds  of  His  nominal  empire,  the 
greatest  men  have  been  soldiers  who  conquered  and 
killed  their  kind ;  princes  of  fortune  who  bought,  hired, 
and  bribed  men ;  or,  in  social  states  a  little  higher,  stu- 
dents and  thinkers  who  led  and  entertained  them  by 
knowledge  or  speech.  That  is,  power  and  command 
and  hence  commemoration  belonged  to  certain  men  by 
virtue  of  what  they  had^  not  by  what  they  were,  Now 
came  a  new  order,  bringing  new  estimates  of  human 
welfare,  new  aims  for  human  life,  new  foundations  for 
strong  states  and  grand  institutions,  a  new  law  and 
impulse  for  civilization ;  in  a  word,  a  new  standard  by 
which  to  measure  and  test  what  is  really  noblest  and 


2  CHRIST  S   FIKST   COMING. 

most  glorious  for  man — man  the  individual,  man  in  the 
family,  man  in  the  nation;  yes,  for  humanity  itself. 
Thenceforth  the  greatness  of  any  man  was  to  be  reck- 
oned not  by  what  he  has,  but  by  what  he  is.  Character 
was  to  be  king. 

No  revolution  could  be  so  radical,  so  wide,  so  prolific 
of  real  results  as  this.  It  goes  to  the  roots  of  life,  and 
sooner  or  later  everything  on  earth  must  be  touched  by 
it.  Why?  Because  the  life  of  man  and  the  life  of 
God  were  to  be  brought  together,  and  made  one. 
Hitherto,  even  by  the  nation  that  knew  most  of  Him, 
God  was  thought  of,  worshipped,  obeyed,  as  living 
apart  from  the  world ;  over  it,  to  be  sure,  exalted  above 
it,  but  separate  from  it.  Looking  through  the  Old  Tes- 
tament we  do  not  often  find  God  spoken  of  as  entering 
into  the  heart  of  His  child,  dwelling  in  man's  soul,  or 
as  making  even  the  holiest  of  His  saints  or  the  purest 
of  His  prophets  a  "partaker  of  the  divine  nature." 
Yet  it  must  be  just  that,  and  only  that,  which  could 
create  in  a  man  the  highest  conceivable  or  possible  good- 
ness; because  God  is  the  Good  One,  and  His  life  the 
only  perfect  life.  If  humanity  could  only  receive  that 
divine  life  into  it,  be  quickened,  enlarged,  transfigured 
by  it,  share  its  eternal  vigor  and  beauty,  that  would  be 
indeed  its  "new  creation."  How  could  this  be?  It 
would  be,  if  a  man,  still  remaining  man,  a  child  "  born 
of  a  woman,"  should  be  also,  by  some  life-giving  mys- 
tery not  unlike  that  of  the  first  creation,  a  partaker  of 
the  life  of  God, — be  divine,  one  with  the  Father. 
Through  Him  the  vital  heavenly  goodness  enters  into 
mankind.  Through  His  heart,  as  its  channel,  its  organ, 
its  "  living  way,"  God's  life  pours  itself  into  all  the  sons 
of  men  that  will  receive  it  by  this  Son  of  Man.  We 
shall  have  only  to  be  united  with  Christ,  the  human 


3 

Brother,  spiritually,  inwardly,  to  be  united  also  at  once 
with  God ;  for  God  is  in  Him ;  and  we  are  joined  to 
the  whole  Christ.     That  is  possible  for  all  men  that  live. 

And  now  this  coming  in  flesh  is  what  has  taken  place. 
It  is  the  Advent-fact.  Is  it  strange  that  four  hundred 
millions  of  people  remember  it  to-day,  and  rejoice  in  it, 
with  chants  and  hymns,  with  Eucharist  and  spiritual 
communion  ?  It  is  the  regeneration  of  our  race.  There 
is  a  new  creation.  There  is  a  second  Adam.  "  The  first 
man  Adam,"  says  St.  Paul,  "  was  made  a  living  soul " ; 
but  the  soul  was  a  natural  soul,  and  the  life  was  nature's 
life,  limited,  with  seeds  of  imperfection  and  death  in  it. 
The  Greeks  called  it  psyche,  and  St.  Paul  uses  their 
word.  **  The  last  Adam  was  made  a  quickening  spirit." 
By  Him  life,  life  imperishable,  everlasting,  is  given  to 
those  w^ho  want  to  live,  and  do  not  want  to  die.  "  As 
in  Adam  all  die,"  or  live  a  dying  life,  "  so  in  Christ  shall 
all  be  made  alive,"  or  live  directly,  spiritually,  from 
God.  This  is  the  Incarnation.  Read  the  first  chapter 
of  St.  John.  We  get  only  a  partial  notion  of  the  coming 
of  Christ  when  we  think  of  Him  as  coming,  as  other 
historical  persons  have  come,  from  without,  or  even  from 
above,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  "  above."  He  "  comes 
forth"  from  God,  and  God  comes  forth  in  Him,  to 
receive  willing,  believing,  obedient  men  into  Himself. 
We  ourselves  are  new-born  in  Him,  and  live  forever, — 
live  a  divine  life,  sons  and  daughters  of  the  Lord  Al- 
mighty.    "Whosoever  will,"  may. 

JS'o  matter  what  the  enterprise,  skill,  wit,  energy, 
combinations,  or  bravery  of  men  may  do,  there  is  nothing 
to  be  done,  or  remembered,  like  this.  All  other  comings 
and  goings  in  history  must  turn  around  this,  make  room 
for  this,  look  up  to  this.  The  kingship  of  character  is 
enthroned.      A   Christian    immortality   is   constituted. 


We  are  enabled  to  live  the  highest  life.  Heaven  begins 
on  earth.  The  Word  is  made  flesh  and  dwells  among 
us.     God  and  man  are  at  one. 

The  face  of  society  was  changed  because  its  heart  was 
changed.  Instead  of  wearing  any  longer  a  look  of  hate 
and  greed  and  cruelty,  there  came  flashing  and  glow^ing 
into  its  expression  the  look  of  love,  purity,  mercy.  This 
was  the  Advent-light.  The  world  silently  began  to  be 
another  world.  And  the  Power  set  working  to  bring 
this  change  about  made  it  unlike  all  other  revolutions. 
It  wrought  without  violence,  noise,  ambition,  or  parade, 
"  not  with  observation."  It  went  on  not  by  destruction, 
but  construction ;  not  tearing  down,  but  building  up. 
When  the  sword  was  drawn  it  was  because  human  hands 
were  used,  and  the  obstinacy  of  the  old  system  would  let 
a  path  be  made  for  the  new  in  no  other  way.  Generally 
it  moved  in  among  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  according 
to  the  great  anthem  that  announced  it  when  it  was  born, 
peacefully  seeking  glory  for  God  by  good- will  to  men, — 
spreading  as  morning  is  spread  upon  the  mountains,  as  a 
harmony  spreads  through  the  spaces  and  arches  of  a 
sanctuary.  Hence,  inasmuch  as  it  must  take  an  organic 
form,  after  its  Living  Head,  and  be  a  kingdom,  it  was 
called  a  Kingdom  of  Life.  Life  was  a  great  word  wuth  it. 
Its  founder  was  the  life-giver.  "  I  am  come,"  He  said, 
"  that  they  might  have  life,  and  might  have  it  more  abun- 
dantly." The  change  was  first  in  the  seats  of  life,  within, 
—  coming  gradually  out  into  doings  or  fruit,  as  the  way 
of  life  is, —  from  a  hidden  seed  to  root,  germ,  blade,  and 
ear ;  into  common  labor,  elevating  it ;  into  homes,  puri- 
fying them  by  honoring  woman  and  consecrating  child- 
hood; into  commerce,  hallowing  it  by  the  spirit  of 
integrity ;  into  education,  making  the  training  of  con- 
science and  faith,  our  loftiest  capacities,  the  crown  of  all 


other  culture ;  into  worship,  directing  it  to  the  One  God, 
worshipped  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

We  know  precisely  when  this  new  Age,  regenerating 
humanity,  came  visibly  in.  The  Divine  Power  did  not 
come  as  an  idea,  or  a  book,  or  a  system,  or  a  code  of 
laws,  or  a  bundle  of  maxims.  Great  and  good  things 
have  come  in  all  these  shapes.  But  the  Life  of  life  came 
in  a  man,  born  as  a  child,  growing  as  a  youth,  living  as 
other  men  live.  It  was  not,  then,  Christianity  that 
renewed  the  race,  it  was  Christ ;  not  abstract  Truth,  but 
a  Personal  Force,  "  made  flesh."  ISTor  did  He  come  to 
disappear,  but  to  remain.  We  Christians  are  not  a 
backward-looking  people.  His  Church  holds  Him  fast, 
clinging  to  Him  by  her  faith,  and  keeping  His  presence 
fresh  by  commemorative  ordinances,  and  by  Christ-like 
work.  Is  it  not  clear  what  our  Advent-observance  ought 
to  be? 

True  enough,  too  true,  the  new  Life  was  not  kept 
pure.  What  river  of  Truth  running  through  the  world 
ever  was  ?  The  Giver  or  His  Apostles  never  promised 
such  a  miracle.  The  old  selfish  kingdom  crept  back  and 
crowded  into  the  Church.  The  promise  was  that  tlie 
Life,  however  perverted,  should  never  be  lost.  It  never 
was.  Again  and  again,  when  most  in  peril,  it  has  reas- 
serted its  original  healing  power.  It  is  slow  work,  but 
it  goes  on.  So  every  year,  besides  the  millions  who 
praise  the  Lord  that  has  come,  millions  more  who  do  not 
acknowledge  Him  are  glad  to  live  in  the  Christendom  He 
has  created.  There  is  a  believing  modern  science,  and 
a  believing  modern  literature.  What  is  to  be  said  of  a 
science  and  a  literature  which  undertake  to  discredit  the 
Author  of  the  age  which  makes  their  existence  possible  ? 

But  this  is  not  all.  Men  have  another  kind  of  want. 
Without  the  Life  of  God  in  them  they  become  conscious 


Q  CHKIST  S   FIRST    COMING. 

of  their  poverty  and  peril.  Bad  men  know  that  they 
are  bad.  A  sense  of  guilt  wakes  up  and  torments  them. 
At  least  it  haunts  their  dreams.  The  kingdom  of 
Christ's  righteousness  stands  before  them,  witnessing 
against  them.  The  Life  of  God  in  the  Son  of  Man  judges 
them.  They  feel  it  around  them,  though  not  within 
them.  They  know  what  its  holy  fruits  are,  and  that 
they  ought  to  be  bringing  them  forth,  and  are  not. 
Through  frivolous  employments  and  dissipated  nights 
the  irreligious  youth,  the  flighty,  prayerless  woman,  carry 
with  them  a  feeling,  partly  smothered,  partly  drugged, 
but  never  dead, — a  feeling  that  springs  up  again,  comes 
back,  wakes  in  the  night,  seizes  them  when  they  are 
alone,  making  them  confess  secretly  that  they  are  not 
right,  not  safe,  not  friends  with  God ;  and  yet  God  is 
Almighty.  What  will  the  end  be  ?  They  are  afraid  to 
look  at  themselves  honestly.  Perhaps  they  despise  them- 
selves and  the  hollow  life  they  are  living.  They  wish 
they  were  out  of  it.  The  sense  of  sin  that  pours  its  con- 
fession in  the  fifty-first  Psalm,  and  cries  out  in  the  pub- 
lican's prayer,  is  stirred  in  them*.  Had  Christ  not  come, 
that  saving  discontent  might  have  slumbered  still.  In 
heathendom  they  might  have  been  content.  Jesus  said, 
"If  I  had  not  done  among  them  the  works  which  none 
other  man  did,  they  had  not  had  sin."  The  unjust,  un- 
clean rich  man  looks  round  him  on  his  broad  estate,  and 
it  does  not  satisfy.  It  shrinks,  as  he  looks  at  some  poor 
brave  neighbor  filled  with  the  life  of  Christ.  A  shadow 
falls  across  all  the  comfort  and  splendor.  It  falls  from 
a  dark  spot  within  him.  His  experiment  at  living  with- 
out God  is  failing,  and  he  is  aware  of  it.  What  is  it  all 
for  ?  It  occurs  to  him  that  the  cofiin  will  be  as  indis- 
pensable an  article  in  the  furniture  of  his  house  as  any. 
What  then  ?     Will  that  be  really  the  end  ?      Christ's 


coming  sunders  the  world  of  men  into  two  sorts,  right 
and  left.  So,  by  thousands,  men  are  revealed  to  them- 
selves as  sinful, — if  left  to  themselves  lost.  How  shall 
they  find  peace,  how  be  forgiven,  how  know  that  they 
have  God  reconciled  for  their  Friend  ?  That  question, 
too,  Christ  comes  to  answer.  IS"o  other  ever  did, — no  nat- 
uralist, no  moralist,  no  positive  philosopher.  Then  it 
appears  that  Christ  came  not  only  to  live,  and  to  give 
life  by  living,  but  to  die,  and  give  life  to  men  dead  in 
sin,  by  dying.  He  suffers.  He  bears  the  cross.  Mys- 
teriously but  with  a  certainty  that  grasps  and  holds  the 
conviction  of  the  believers  of  every  age  and  land,  that 
suffering  and  that  cross  disclose  the  worth  of  a  soul's  life 
so  redeemed.  The  Divine  Life  is  Love,  a  Love  that  is 
willing  to  give  a  mortal  life  for  undeserving,  disobedient 
brother-men.  Law  is  not  loosened ;  it  stands.  The 
eternal  contradiction  between  right  and  wrong  is  not 
confused.  But  in  faith  the  penitent  feels  the  love,  and 
lives.  This  is  atonement.  Christ  comes  to  put  away  sins 
by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself. 

"We  have  infirmities  which  are  not  sins.  In  ways 
partly  known  and  partly  unknown  they  may  be  fruits  of 
disobedience ;  but  they  are  not  distributed  among  persons 
in  proportion  to  their  deserving.  Still,  they  are  a  part 
of  moral  discipline.  At  its  very  best,  this  life  is  "  com- 
passed" with  them.  To  the  last  the  little  ship  sails 
heavily  freighted  with  sorrows.  Of  how  many  kinds 
these  sorrows  are !  And  then  death  separates  us.  The 
good  die  young.  The  saints  cease  from  their  beneficent 
service.  The  prophets  do  not  live  forever.  Can  we 
bear  it  ?  In  imagination — thank  God  not  otherwise — we 
can  put  ourselves  out  into  that  bleak  desert,  a  Christless 
world.  We  ayk  there,  and  then  ask  here,  will  these 
graves  ever  open  ?     Shall  I  see  the  face  of  my  mother, 


8  chkist's  fiest  coming. 

my  child,  my  friend,  whose  spirit  was  rich  in  the  gifts 
and  graces  of  God  1  See  it  in  an  eternity  of  blessed, 
unbroken,  undivided  life  ?  I  know  that  I  shall.  Jesus 
Christ  has  come,  has  died,  has  risen  from  the  dead. 
Because  He  lives.  His  follower,  one  with  Him,  shall  live 
also.  The  resurrection  is  not  only  His.  It  is  the  res- 
urrection of  every  believer  on  earth.  The  life-power  is 
common  to  both.  It  is  within  the  Christian  heart. 
When  the  undying  Christ  liveth  in  us,  we  can  never 
die.  Be  His,  and  you  are  already  immortal,  mortality 
being  swallowed  up  of  life.  Tlie  glorious  expectation 
enlarges  itself.  In  the  day  of  His  appearing  you  shall 
appear,  and  with  Him.  "  We  know  not  what  we  shall 
be,  but  we  know  that  we  shall  be  like  Him."  We  know 
that  none  of  us  need  die  eternally.  Countless  house- 
holds in  every  Christian  country,  knowing  what  it  is  to 
mourn  for  the  dead,  awake  this  morning  to  worship  a 
risen  Redeemer,  and  to  realize  the  strength  of  the 
beatitude,  "  Blessed  are  they  that  mourn,  for  they  shall 
be  comforted."  Let  it  come  close  to  your  bereavement. 
"  Thy  brother  shall  rise  again."  You  say,  "  Obscurity 
overhangs  the  future  state."  Obscurity  perhaps,  but 
not  uncertainty.  It  is  of  the  first  Coming  that  we  are 
the  children  now,  not  of  the  second.  Eye  hath  not  seen 
the  place,  the  mode,  the  scenery,  the  employments.  All 
in  due  time;  all  in  order.  "We  shall  see  as  we  are 
seen ;  know  as  we  are  known."  Jesus  Christ  has  come 
for  this, — a  Helper  of  infirmities,  holding  us  in  the  hand 
of  His  most  sure  promise,  till  the  day  break  and  the 
shadows  flee  away.  We  have  seen  the  three-fold 
character  and  power  of  Advent.  It  brings  the  life 
of  God  into  humanity ;  forgiveness  of  sin  and  peace  to 
every  faithful  heart ;  boundless  and  endless  comfort  to 
sorrow,  even  though  it  be  the  sorrow  of  death. 


Christ's  first  coming.  9 

The  drawback  with  all  stated  and  repeated  observ- 
ances is  that  we  keep  them  outwardly,  not  inwardly. 
We  say  over  the  religious  words;  we  go  through  the 
decent  forms ;  perhaps  we  think  the  appropriate  religious 
thoughts.  "Advent!  Oh,  yes;  it  is  good  to  keep 
Ad\^ent.  It  is  well  that  Christ  came " : — and  we  go 
away  with  almost  as  little  love  of  Him,  almost  as  much 
of  the  old  sellishness,  pride,  passion,  which  He  died  to 
deliver  us  from,  as  before ;  almost  as  much  uncharitable- 
ness  or  insincerity  dropping  from  our  lips;  to  renew  to- 
morrow the  poor  life  of  getting,  hoarding,  competing, 
being  amused,  eating,  drinking,  dressing,  as  if  these 
things  were  ends, — "  without  God." 

What  is  it  really  to  Iceejp  an  Advent-season  ?  The  re- 
ligious repetition  will  not  give  us  the  Christ,  whether  as 
the  Renewer  of  the  world's  life,  or  the  Pardoner  of  sin, 
or  the  Conqueror  of  death.  The  worth  of  the  observ- 
ance is  only  that  it  helps  us  to  a  deeper,  inner  union 
with  our  Lord,  and  likeness  to  Him.  Words  are  not 
saviours.  Is  this  social  state  we  live  in  such  as  Christ 
came  to  frame?  Is  its  spirit  His?  Are  its  fashions 
moulded  by  the  principles  of  His  righteousness?  Your 
daily  business, — is  it  a  Christian  service  ?  Your  family 
manners  and  conversation, — are  they  such  that  if  Christ 
were  to  make  His  advent  there.  He  would  find  Himself 
at  home  in  your  house  ?  Your  hidden  life,  that  secret 
world  within  you  which  no  housemate,  neighbor,  friend, 
ever  sees,  the  "  inner  man," — is  it  renewed  day  by  day 
so  as,  more  and  more  brightly,  to  reflect  His  image? 

It  is  remarkable  that,  while  the  Scriptures  for  Advent- 
Sunday  are  greatly  concerned  with  the  august  events  to 
which  they  point,  we  find  in  them  searching  directions 
for  our  present,  e very-day  conduct ;  rebukes  for  common 
sins;    familiar  dangers  mentioned  by  name.     Examine 


10  Christ's  first  coming. 

tlie  "Epistle  "  especially.  What  does  it  signify  ?  This, 
without  a  doubt:  that  our  true  preparation  for  our 
Lord's  approach  is  holy  living.  Mark  the  ascending 
scale.  Debts  are  to  be  paid.  Elementary  command- 
ments are  to  be  re-studied  down  to  their  roots.  The  new 
Christian,  year  is  to  be  the  beginning  of  a  new  period  of 
spiritual  life ;  the  young  are  to  strike  into  a  new  line  of 
Christian  action ;  all  are  to  set  up  higher  standards  of 
Christian,  honor ;  '^  the  night  is  far  spent "  ;  a  "  day  "  of 
unprecedented  splendor,  lighting  us  on  to  unprecedented 
labors,  is  mounting  into  the  sky.  And  when  all  duties, 
with  their  loftiest  motives,  are  to  be  comprehended  in  a 
single  precept,  it  can  be  no  other  than  this:  "Put  ye 
on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 


CHKIST'S  SECOND   COMI]S"a 

Second  Sunday  in  Advent. 

"  Wherefore  if  they  shall  say  unto  you,  Behold,  He  is  in  the  desert ; 
go  not  forth:  behold  He  is  in  the  secret  chambers,  believe  it  not. 
For  as  the  lightning  com^th  out  of  the  east,  and  shineth  even  unto 
the  west;  so  shall  also  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  be." — Matt, 
xxiv.  26,  27. 

I  SHALL  assume  that  there  is  some  interest  on  your  part, 
and  at  the  same  time  some  uncertainty,  as  to  what  the 
Scripture  teaching  of  the  future  coming  of  the  Son  of 
Man  really  is.  Both  have  always  been  found  to  exist 
among  Christians,  though  the  interest  of  the  question  has 
been  much  livelier  and  more  general  at  some  particular 
periods  of  the  Church  than  others,  being  generally  strong- 
est in  times  of  great  social  disturbance  and  danger,  like 
the  several  epochs  of  persecution  under  the  Roman  em- 
perors, the  first  uprising  of  modern  liberty  in  conflict  with 
European  despotism,  the  struggles  between  the  people 
and  the  crown  in  England,  involving  the  integrity  of  the 
national  Church,  in  the  middle  and  latter  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  again  in  the  great  social  and 
political  agitations  of  our  own  day.  Such  intensely 
wrought  states  of  the  public  mind  naturally  direct  the 
attention  forward  to  the  final  issue,  giving  activity  and 
acuteness  to  the  sense  of  future  change,  somewhat  as  the 
jar  of  the  atmosphere  by  travel  on  the  highway,  or  the 
jostle  of  machinery,  is  said  to  quicken  in  deaf  persons 


12  Christ's  second  coming. 

the  sense  of  hearing.  But  there  never  was  a  time  when 
the  true  followers  of  Christ  were  indifferent  to  His  prom- 
ise of  meeting  them  face  to  face,  and  receiving  them  into 
a  wider  fellowship  and  an  everlasting  kingdom. 

There  are  some  real  difficulties,  we  ought  candidly 
to  acknowledge,  in  discovering  how  much  the  inspired 
writings  were  intended  to  reveal.  Hence  we  shall  lay  it 
down  at  the  outset,  and  remember  it  all  along,  that  there 
are  two  provinces  to  he  kept  entirely  distinct.  One  is 
the  province  of  what  the  Scriptures  plainly  and  undoubt- 
edly declare,  as  by  all  Christians  to  be  believed,  and  as 
being  in  some  way  necessary  to  a  complete  life  and  god- 
liness. The  other  province  includes  much  matter  less 
essential,  matter  of  inference  and  construction  less  vitally 
related  to  the  edifying  of  the  soul  and  its  salvation, 
where  room  is  given  for  a  lawful  difference  of  interpre- 
tation, and  for  variety  of  opinion.  Even  here  we  all 
have  the  duty  of  investigation,  and  the  responsibility  of 
it;  truth  is  never  a  matter  of  indifference;  every  topic 
that  the  Bible  touches  deserves  a  reverent  regard.  Yet 
the  dividing  line  is  one  that  ought  to  be  respected,  and 
in  relation  to  few  subjects  more  than  this  one.  Revela- 
tion tells  us  with  wonderful  clearness  what  all  men  ought 
to  believe  and  ought  to  do.  The  disclosure  to  us  of 
necessary  doctrine  and  duty,  if  not  obvious  at  first  sight 
in  every  part,  can  be  understood  on  a  very  reasonable 
amount  of  pains,  even  by  unlettered  and  common  minds, 
if  the  attempt  is  lighted  up  by  that  inward  illumination 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  which  shines  on  our  darkness  in 
answer  to  prayer.  But  round  about  this  region  of  posi- 
tive teaching,  resting  on  absolute  authority,  there  lies 
another  region,  still  scriptural,  of  intimation  and  sugges- 
tion, of  allusion  and  probability,  of  things  half  unveiled, 
prospects  dimly  disclosed  and  intended  so  to  stand  till 


13 

we  are  lifted  into  loftier  places  and  broader  light,  perhaps 
till  we  have  "  open  vision  for  the  written  word."  These 
shadows  and  half-lights  of  Kevelation,  these  things  seen 
as  through  a  glass  darkly,  have  their  divine  uses  and  even 
their  peculiar  glories  in  the  exercise  of  our  patience,  the 
feeding  of  simple  faith,  and  the  discipline  of  humility. 
The  mischief  is  that  curiosity  and  audacity  are  often 
tempted  to  take  what  belongs  to  this  matter  of  religious 
suggestion  and  throw  it  over  into  the  province  of  dog- 
matic assertion,  requiring  to  be  received  as  religious 
fact,  and  perhaps  with  some  defined  theory  of  the  fact, 
what  God  meant  us  to  behold  only  with  wonder,  trust, 
and  hope.  The  mischief  is  manifold.  It  intermixes 
mortal  mistakes  with  God's  unadulterated  truth.  It 
colors  the  uncolored  beam  of  Heaven.  It  repels  candid 
inquiries  by  a  tone  of  arbitrary  presumption.  Worse 
than  all,  it  draws  the  soul  aside  from  her  direct  and 
practical  work,  of  doing  her  Lord's  will,  into  a  thousand 
very  tempting  and  seductive,  but  wholly  irrelevant,  lines 
of  thought,  quite  foreign  from  the  building  of  men  up 
in  righteousness,  in  love,  and  in  holy  obedience. 

St.  Matthew  tells  us  that  a  short  time  before  the 
Saviour's  suffering  and  departure  from  the  world,  as  He 
went  out  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  for  nearly  or  quite 
the  last  time.  His  disciples  called  his  attention  to  the 
grandeur  and  durability  of  the  structure.  He  simply 
amazed  and  alarmed  them  at  the  moment  by  informing 
them  that  a  destruction  was  awaiting  the  building  so 
violent  and  complete  that  not  one  stone  would  be  left  upon 
another.  The  topic  was  not  pursued  at  the  time  in  so 
public  a  place.  But  a  little  later  in  the  day,  on  their 
evening  walk  to  Bethany,  as  they  sat  down  privately  on 
the  Mount  of  Olives,  and,  looking  westward,  saw  those 
superb  towers  of  marble  and  gold  standing  firm  against 


14 

the  twiliglit  sky,  where  the  fading  sunshine  must  have 
appeared  to  them  like  a  sad  symbol  of  that  declining  and 
vanishing  national  enthusiasm  which  for  centuries  had 
kindled  the  hearts  of  their  ancestors  toward  that  hal- 
lowed spot,  they  renewed  the  conversation,  begging  their 
Master  to  tell  them  when  this  startling  prediction  should 
be  accomplished,  and  what  signs  they  might  expect 
beforehand  of  the  great  catastrophe.  ITor  was  this  all. 
Mark  what  else  they  included  in  their  inquiry.  They 
said  :  "  What  shall  be  the  sign  of  Thy  coming^  and  of  the 
end  of  the  world f'^'^  which  seems  to  show  that  they 
associated  together  the  sacking  of  the  Holy  City  with 
the  final  crash  of  the  whole  terrestrial  order,  either 
regarding  the  local  ruin  as  to  be  simultaneous  with  the 
general  dissolution,  or  else  as  somehow  leading  on  or 
pointing  to  it.  This  opened  the  whole  subject,  and 
Jesus  proceeded  with  that  august  prediction  which  the 
Evangelists  have  recorded,  where  every  word  is  weighty 
with  the  solemnity  of  the  judgment. 

N^ow,  without  a  minute  scrutiny  here  of  each  phrase 
in  detail,  but  embracing  in  the  same  view  with  the 
entire  passage  all  the  other  teachings  of  Christ  and  His 
several  Apostles  on  the  subject,  —  which  are  certainly 
capable  of  being  reduced  into  entire  harmony  with  each 
other,  —  we  may  reach,  and  put  down  before  us,  as  it 
appears  to  me,  a  few  satisfactory  statements,  or  doctrines 
if  you  choose,  which  pretty  much  exhaust  what  we  have 
just  referred  to  as  the  plainly  revealed  and  therefore 
essential  truth  in  the  whole  matter.  And  this  we  get 
at,  remember,  not  by  an  attempt  to  make  out  a  foregone 
conclusion,  or  to  square  Scripture  to  any  favorite  view, 
but  simply  by  bringing  all  the  pertinent  passages  to- 
gether, placing  them  side  by  side,  observing  their  several 
connections,  ascertaining  the  meaning  of  the   original 


15 

as   well   as   the    translated    terms,  ""and    declaring    the 
result. 

1.  First,  then,  both  Christ  and  His  Apostles  speak 
repeatedly  of  a  second  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man,  in 
such  a  sense  as  forbids  us  to  confound  the  second  with 
the  first.  The  two  are  put  entirely  apart  in  time,  though 
they  are  internally  and  morally  connected  with  each 
other;  the  one  preparing  the  way  for  the  other,  and  each 
being  in  fact  fragmentary  and  unintelligible  without  the 
other.  The  one  coming,  however,  as  a  historical  fact, 
is  past, — having  given  birth  to  a  new  age,  the  Gospel 
and  the  Church ;  the  other  is  yet  to  be.  They  are  re- 
spectively the  beginning  and  the  end,  in  time,  of  one 
design,  the  redemption  and  training  of  mankind,  from 
sin  to  holiness,  from  an  old  life,  which  was  death,  into 
a  life  everlasting,  in  an  immortal  society.  We  are  all 
living,  throughout  this  Christian  dispensation,  in  the 
intermediate  stage  of  this  glorious  proceeding.  It  is  a 
kind  of  transition-period.  As  compared  with  eternity, 
it  is  all  but  a  short  term, — a  narrow  strip  between  two 
boundless  seas.  Could  we  really  conceive  of  eternity, 
or  could  we  so  be  lifted  up  as  to  look  down  on  the  im- 
mensity stretching  on  each  side  of  this  whole  Christian 
era,  it  would  no  doubt  appear  like  a  mere  thread  across 
the  field  of  vision.  Yet,  it  is  sufficient  for  the  disci- 
pline of  a  living  race,  including  millions  of  souls.  So 
we  stand  here,  each  individual  life  but  a  speck  on  that 
narrow  belt,  and  here  we  make  our  choice.  We  look 
behind  and  before.  The  Gospel  tells  us,  over  and  over, 
in  every  variation  of  the  plainest  language,  that  Christ 
has  come  in  our  fiesh  and  nature  once,  and  has  removed 
every  possible  hindrance  to  our  living  with  Him  forever. 
It  tells  us  just  as  explicitly  that  He  has  gone,  like  a 
travelling  prince,  to  receive  for  Himself  a  kingdom,  and 


16  Christ's  second  coming. 

that  He  is  coming  again  to  reign  in  that  kingdom,  with 
His  own  people,  and  that,  in  connection  with  that,  the 
whole  period  of  trial,  of  choice,  will  end.  So  the 
Church  has  ever  believed  and  taught,  and  so  she  prays 
in  her  repeated  Advent  collect.  Her  Advent  season 
reaffirms  and  illustrates  the  truth.  From  Sunday  to 
Sunday  she  holds  up  many  Scripture  lessons  to  keep  it 
ever  in  mind.  Her  living  Head  is  to  come  a  second 
time. 

2.  In  the  next  place,  that  coming  is  personal  and 
literal.  Look  at  all  the  language  and  all  the  accompany- 
ing descriptions,  and  you  will  see  that  no  loose  talk  of 
"figures  of  speech"  will  explain  away  this  lucid  and 
repeated  declaration,  or  the  mysterious  fact  it  announces. 
Whatever  accommodations  of  the  literal  language  we 
may  find,  they  must  all  grow  up  around  this  one  un- 
mistakable, foretold  faoty  and  grow  out  of  it.  We 
may  call  signal  social  revolutions,  reforms  in  govern- 
ment, the  emancipation  of  slaves,  or  great  accessions 
of  knowledge  or  charity,  new  coinings  of  Christ.  The 
figure  is  intelligible ;  but  they  are  not  comings  of  Him. 
They  may  be  comings  of  the  impersonal  power  and 
principles  of  His  religion, — partial  blessings  reminding 
us  of  the  one  great  blessing  that  includes  them  all ;  but 
He  is  to  come.  "  Ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  Man  (not 
His  ideas  but  Him)  coming  in  power  and  great  glory." 
Either  by  the  gathering  of  His  people,  or  by  His  own 
celestial  movement,  "  Every  eye  shall  see  (not  His  works 
but)  Him."  Besides,  certain  particular  miraculous 
events  and  tokens  are  mentioned  as  attending  His 
appearing. 

Nor,  again,  will  it  do  to  tamper  with  Holy  Scripture 
by  such  a  theory  of  interpretation  as  that  His  comiiig 
means  our  going.     The  death  or  departure  of  the  indi- 


17 

vidual  is  one  thing;  the  Bible  often  mentions  that, 
meaning  just  what  it  says.  The  Lord's  coming  is 
another ;  it  will  be  but  once  again  for  all  men ;  there 
will  be  a  time  for  it ;  it  will  be  sudden  and  bright,  like 
the  light  that  shineth  from  east  to  west.  We  have  no 
data,  no  experience,  no  critical  apparatus,  to  measure 
such  a  fact  by.  That  is  not  our  business.  We  are 
learners  to  be  taught. 

*'Thou  hast  spoken,  T  believe, 
Though  the  oracle  be  sealed." 

3.  Thirdly,  this  great  coming  is  to  be  connected  with 
a  separation  of  the  good  from  the  bad,  the  believers  from 
the  deniers,  the  spiritually  alive  from  the  spiritually 
dead.  Hence  it  is  always  spoken  of  as  a  Judgment; 
because  each  one  then  goes  to  his  own  place,  and  finds 
his  portion  where  he  has  chosen  it.  That  begins  to  be 
the  case,  inwardly,  wdth  every  man,  now.  But  it  be- 
comes tlie  outward,  literal,  terrible  fact,  not  till  then.  It 
is  not  declared  that  the  whole  process  of  final  adjudication 
to  heaven  or  hell  is  finished  then ;  it  is  rather  made  to 
appear  that  after  another  long  period  some  mysterious 
ordeal  will  try  the  faithful  once  more ;  but  the  external 
judgment  begins:  and  hence  how  well  it  is  for  us  to 
entreat,  as  we  do,  that  by  His  first  coming  the  hearts  of 
the  disobedient  may  be  so  turned,  and  the  works  of 
darkness  be  so  cast  off",  that  at  His  second  coming  in 
majesty  to  judge  the  world,  we  may  be  found  an  accept- 
able people,  and  rise  to  the  life  immortal  I 

4.  The  chapter  of  St.  Matthew,  however,  in  the 
common-sense  interpretation  of  it,  obviously  has  some 
reference  to  a  kind  of  coming  of  Christ  which  was  to 
take  place  in  the  lifetime  of  the  generation  that  was  on 
the  stage  while  the  Saviour  was  speaking.     It  was  to  be 


18 

in  some  way  connected  with  the  invasion  of  the  Homan 
armies  and  the  downfall  of  the  capital  and  temple  of 
the  Jews,  in  that  century.  This  is  the  first  of  two  main 
difficulties.  Men  have  said,  If  the  Messiah  meant  to 
predict  a  great  coming  in  His  kingdom  at  the  en  d  of  the 
Christian  age,  why  did  He  employ  terms  that  distinctly 
point  to  what  was  to  take  place  so  soon,  and  at  Jerusa- 
lem, and  call  that  His  coming?  To  answer  that,  con- 
sider that  the  disciples  were  questioning  Him  on  that 
very  point,  the  overthrow  of  the  Temple.  The  reply  to 
them  must  be  a  part  of  His  discourse. 

But  consider,  further,  that  it  is  one  of  what  we  may 
call  the  laws  or  canons  of  prophetic  writing,  that  the 
language  employed  may  have  reference  to  two  different 
persons  or  times, —  the  one,  and  the  less  important, 
too  near  to  the  speaker ;  the  other  and  the  greater  ful- 
filment being  found  in  some  remoter  and  grander  per- 
sonage or  event  to  come.  Thus,  for  instance,  if  you 
examine  those  Psalms  of  David  which  contain  prophecies 
of  the  Messiah,  you  see  that  they  are  so  composed  as  to  be 
in  part  and  at  first  applicable  to  David  himself,  and  his 
own  personal  fortunes ;  but  you  look  again,  and  see  that 
there  is  prophetic  language  there  which  will  not  suit  any 
other  personage  than  the  Son  of  God ;  and  in  fact  Christ 
and  the  Evangelists  expressly  declare  that  it  w^as  written 
of  Him.  The  human  subject  is  made  a  groundwork 
and  a  type,  to  exhibit  the  Divine  King  that  was  to  be. 
So  of  some  of  the  predictions  of  Isaiah.  The  same  prin- 
ciple must  be  heeded  in  interpreting  these  predictions 
of  our  Lord.  You  find  a  part  of  the  phraseology  refer- 
ring explicity  to  Palestinian  history,  and  of  that  part  He 
says,  "  This  generation  shall  not  pass  away  till  all  these 
things  are  fulfilled."  It  is  said  that  "  this  generation  " 
may  refer  to  the  national  life  of  the  Jews.     It  ispossihle. 


Christ's  second  coming.  19 

Others  liave  said  those  words  mean  the  whole  Chris- 
tian Dispensation,  which  appears  to  ns  to  be  forced 
and  improbable.  Yet  at  the  same  time  you  find,  in  the 
same  discourse,  expressions  that  show  the  speaker  to 
have  been  looking  forward  down  the  track  of  ages,  to  a 
much  wider  and  mightier  consummation.  For  He  goes 
on  to  say  that  all  nations  shall  be  alarmed  and  aroused  at 
this  final  appearing ;  that  it  shall  be  preceded  by  unpre- 
cedented disorders  and  antagonisms ;  that  the  Gospel 
must  first  be  preached  to  all  nations;  that  signs  shall 
appear  before  it  such  as  the  world  has  not  yet  witnessed. 
Moreover,  studying  the  passage  more  carefully,  you  will 
notice  that  the  change  of  reference  is  gradual ;  and  that, 
while  Christ  begins  with  dwelling  almost  entirely  on 
incidents  of  the  fall  of  the  City  and  Temple,  He  rises,  as 
He  proceeds,  till  in  the  latter  part  the  words  befit  His 
world-wide  manifestation,  and  that  alone.*  Admit  the 
rule  of  a  double  application,  one  immediate  and  the  other 
remote,  which  for  some  cause  or  other  is  evidently 
according  to  the  supernatural  genius  and  usage  of  the 
prophetic  spirit,  and  difiiculties  disappear.  Each  portion 
of  God's  Word  becomes  consistent  with  itself,  with  other 
portions,  with  the  character  of  the  author,  and  with  what 
was  known  of  human  history  outside  of  it. 

5.  We  come  now  to  what,  with  many  minds,  has 
been  a  greater  difficulty,  viz.,  that  inspired  writers. 
Apostles,  signify  their  expectation  that  Christ's  second 
advent  would  take  place  during  their  own  natural  life. 
Were  they  mistaken,  and  mistaken  teachers  of  others? 
A  vast  amount  of  ingenious  efibrt  has  been  made  to 
break   the   force   of  this   objection   without   sacrificing 


*  The  order  of  sentences  seems  not  intended  by  the  Evanglists  to  be 
exact.     See  St.  Luke. 


20  Christ's  second  coming. 

the  infallibility  of  the  record.  For  the  most  part  it  has 
failed  by  taking  the  purely  external  or  philological 
method,  and  without  sounding  spiritually  the  depths  of 
the  Evangelic  purpose.  I  need  not  even  specify  the  var- 
ious hypotheses.  Let  us  honestly  take  the  language  of 
honest  men  in  its  ordinary  acceptation.  What,  then,  shall 
we  say  ?  To  me  all  difficulties  are  cleared  by  the  fol- 
lowing proposition,  which  I  think  commends  itself  as 
reasonable,  reverential,  and  in  harmony  not  only  with 
the  drift  of  the  doctrine  we  have  presented,  but  with 
the  doctrine  of  inspiration  which  the  faith  of  the 
Church  Catholic  has  held  from  the  beginning:  The 
purpose  of  Revelation^  in  this  matter,  was  to  create 
in  Christians,  not  a  helief  that  Christ  would  come  at 
any  particular  hour  in  history,  hut  a  helief  that  He  is 
always  at  hand,  and  that  all  Christians  should  at  all 
times  and  in  all  places  he  ready,  as  men  that  stand 
with  their  lamps  trimmed  and  hurning,  to  meet  Him 
personally.  The  date  of  the  event  was  no  part  of 
the  Divine  communication.  On  that  point  the  writers 
were  left  to  their  human  faculties,  and  if  they  misap- 
prehended, it  was  only  the  plainer  evidence  that  they 
were  but  men.  In  other  words,  it  was  of  importance 
that  the  mind  of  the  Church  should  be  always  regarding 
the  Lord  and  Head  as  nigh,  but  not  to  have  the  chronol- 
ogy settled.  The  Bible  makes  its  usual  preference  of 
moral  and  religious  impression  above  accuracy  in  the 
letter.  There  was,  in  fact,  no  practical  error.  For  the 
writers  were  as  careful  to  caution  the  Church  against 
impatience  and  over-confidence  as  against  the  opposite. 
That  generation  passed;  and  no  future  one  could  be 
misguided  by  their  expressions.  In  regarding  it  as  their 
solemn  duty  to  be  ever  waiting,  and  watching,  and  hast- 
ing unto  the  coming  of  the  day,  as  one  of  them  ardently 


Christ's  second  coming.  21 

expresses  it,  even  though  thej  were  individiaally  to  die 
in  martyrdom,  or  in  their  beds,  they  were  unquestion- 
ably and  blessedly  right. 

In  proportion  as  we  rise,  in  thought,  toward  the  im- 
mensity of  the  life  of  God,  and  have  "  the  mind  of  the 
Spirit,"  the  whole  period  of  history  shrinks,  great  dis- 
tances dwindle,  epochs  are  pressed  together,  and  "  a 
thousand  years  are  as  one  day." 

Besides,  the  highest  authority  in  modern  physical 
science,  in  astronomy,  and  geology,  and  chemistry,  har- 
monizes singularly  enough  as  to  the  issue  with  the 
Apostolic  language.  It  concludes  that  the  machinery 
of  the  material  universe  is  wasting,  its  movements  are 
slackening,  its  balance  is  slowly  loosening,  and  that  a 
general  catastrophe  is  inevitable.  The  sneer  of  the 
scientific  sceptic  of  the  last  century  is  silenced  by  the 
science  of  to-day. 

We  may  say  that,  in  the  Bible  predictions  generally, 
borrowing  a  phrase  from  the  fine  arts,  what  we  may 
call  historical  perspective  is  lost  sight  of.  We  are  not 
told  at  what  intervals  from  each  other,  or  always  in  just 
what  order,  these  majestic  events,  by  which  eternity 
seems  to  open  down  into  time,  shall  follow  on.  Chro- 
nology is  not  the  object.  The  facts  are  what  we  are  to 
know,  and  receive,  and  feed  upon  in  our  hearts  by  faith. 
The  moment  we  begin  to  try  our  petty  arithmetic  on 
them  we  miss  the  mark,  and  lose  our  way.  We  all 
know  that,  even  with  ourselves,  the  moments  of  tremen- 
dous peril,  when  awful  events  are  casting  their  colossal 
shadows  about  us,  are  just  the  time  when  the  ordinary 
measure  of  succession  drops  out  of  sight.  We  look 
across  the  great  tract  and  see  other  great  conjunctions, 
as  if  they  were  nigh  at  hand.  Christ  Jesus  is  not  en- 
closed in  time,  but  time  is  all  in  Him.     The  regular 


sequence  of  incidents  is  broken  up ;  common  occurences 
are  dwarfed ;  and  we  see  nothing  else  but  Him, — His  first 
mediatorial  ministry,  His  present  ineffable  life.  His  fu- 
ture glorious  appearing  and  reign ; — we  see  Him  as  an 
object  of  supreme  affection.  So  that  the  intense  life  of 
faith,  begotten  in  the  first  disciples,  at  the  miraculous 
stirring  age  of  the  very  presence  and  sacrifice  of  the, 
Saviour,  would  be  the  very  condition  of  things  where 
everything  hetween  would  be  forgotten,  and  the  believer 
would  look  on  straight  to  the  great  consummation  and 
end  of  all,  and  would  behold  it  as  if  that  were  the  one 
transcendent  and  even  near  event, —  as,  to  the  traveller 
straining  his  eyes  to  the  mountain  top  before  him,  the 
higher  the  peak  the  narrower  the  intervening  plain  ap- 
pears. This,  therefore,  would  become  the  appropriate 
and  forward-looking  attitude  which  the  Church  and  the 
Christian  would  always  hold, —  an  attitude  of  hopeful, 
ardent,  believing  expectation, — "  looking  for  and  hasting 
unto  the  coming  or  day  of  the  Lord." 

The  chief  elements  in  the  practical,  animating  power 
of  that  expectation  are  that  it  assures  us  of  the  unity 
and  sure  completion  of  the  "redeeming  work"  for 
which  the  Son  of  God  took  our  nature  upon  Him;  it 
promises  the  end  of  that  long  conflict  of  evil  with  good 
of  which  this  world  has  been  the  defiled  and  weary 
theatre, —  wet,  so  many  thousand  years,  with  the  tears  of 
the  wronged  and  the  blood  of  the  just,  and  resounding 
with  groans  of  remorse;  it  preannounces  the  victory  and 
the  eternal  peace ;  it  welcomes  to  the  throne  the  Leader 
and  Shepherd  in  whose  dear  cause  the  good  soldier  has 
fought,  faithful  to  his  life's  end.  It  anticipates  the  eter- 
nal festival  when,  not  only  in  the  right  of  possession  but 
in  the  actual  and  loyal  submission  and  praise  of  saints, 
the  earth  shall  be  the  Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof. 


23 

[Here,  if  I  understand  the  record,  the  realm  of  what 
is  essential  to  Christian  doctrine  in  the  passage  ends. 
There  are  other  points  which  different  schools  have  in- 
sisted on  as  necessary  parts  of  it,  sometimes  with  unwar- 
ranted assurance.  As  matters  of  opinion,  as  construc- 
tions of  what  the  Scriptures  imply  rather  than  reveal, 
they  may  be  correct,  or  may  not  be.  They  cannot  be 
held  or  taught  as  authoritative  matter,  nor  are  they 
included  in  the  Catholic  system  of  truth.  Thus,  there 
have  been  ambitious  attempts  to  fix  the  year,  by  compu- 
tation on  many  different  data  or  bases,  when  the  present 
dispensation  will  be  wound  up  and  the  Son  of  Man  come 
to  close  the  probationary  age.  They  have  all  offended 
common-sense  by  the  extravagance  of  their  mode  of 
dealing  with  numbers,  and  every  one  of  them  has  broken 
down  by  the  simple  passage  of  time.  The  very  starting- 
point  of  them  was  a  departure  from  faith  to  mathematics, 
—  and  the  mathematics  turned  out  to  be  about  as  weak 
as  the  faith.  The  marvel  is  the  greater,  because  the 
statement  in  the  Acts  is  so  explicit  that  the  Father  hath 
hid  the  times  and  seasons  in  His  own  power;  while  it 
might  have  been  supposed  that  the  Saviour  had  given 
His  followers  the  most  impressive  and  conclusive  lesson 
of  reserve  and  modesty,  when  He  declared  it  as  a  part 
of  the  condescension  of  His  incarnation  and  humility, 
that  so  long  as  He  was  in  the  flesh  the  day  and  hour 
were  hidden  even  from  the  Son  himself. 

[Similar  bold  ventures  have  been  made  toward  deter- 
mining precisely  who  that  "  Man  of  Sin  "  is,  that,  before 
the  end  comes,  is  to  gather  up,  as  St.  Paul  says,  and 
embody  in  himself  somewhere  all  the  malign  infidelity 
and  blasphemy  of  modern  irreverence  and  conceit, 
whether  as  pope,  autocrat,  or  philosopher,  exalting  him- 
self above  all  that  is  called  God,  and  sliowing  himself 


24 

that  he  is  God.  But  these  transgressors  over  the  line 
of  written  truth  have  only  published  their  own  presump- 
tion, and  contradicted  one  another. 

[A  favorite  accessory  to  the  revealed  doctrine  is  that  of 
the  regathering  of  the  tribes  of  Israel  in  their  Judean 
home,  and  the  restoration  of  the  Holy  City.  There  is 
certainly  a  great  deal  of  apparent  Scripture  encourage- 
ment for  that  bright  and  tenacious  hope  of  the  Hebrew. 
It  seems  to  me  that,  on  the  whole,  the  preponderance  of 
prophetic  testimony  favors  it.  But  I  cannot  be  blind  to 
the  grave  questions  which  arise,  both  exegetical  and 
historical,  holding  many  able  minds  in  suspense  as  to 
the  part  the  Jew  is  yet  to  l^lay,  and  arraying  others  on 
the  negative  side ;  and  so  I  cannot  help  wondering  at 
the  unqualified  confidence  of  men  in  what  strikes  me  as 
a  cheerful  probability,  of  which  we  must  humbly  wait 
the  verification,  rather  than  an  evangelically  affirmed 
certainty. 

[Much  the  same  may  be  said  of  those  decided  opinions 
we  sometimes  hear  advanced  respecting  the  exact  order 
of  events  in  the  final  disposition  of  things  in  the  last 
days,  and  the  ultimate  fate  of  this  planet.  Such  specula- 
tions are  utterly  worthless.  A  little  more  faith,  hope, 
and  charity  would  be  better  than  the  best  of  them.  All 
we  know  is  that  such  changes  in  our  globe  as  have  been 
wrought  in  the  past  geologic  periods,  and  as  reason 
declares  to  be  probable  at  any  time,  only  universal,  are 
foretold  in  the  Bible  as  to  happen  some  time  or  other, — 
"  the  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat " ;  that  the 
resources  of  Omnipotence  are  infinite ;  that  the  universe 
is  vast,  beyond  the  utmost  stretch  of  the  amplest  imagin- 
ation ;  that  the  souls  of  the  righteous  are  in  the  hands 
of  God  alone,  where  no  torment  shall  touch  them ;  and 
that  though  this  earthly  house  of  our  tabernacle  were 


25 

dissolved,  we  have  a  building  of  God,  eternal  and  in- 
destructible, where,  though  we  know  not  what  we  shall 
bo,  we  know  that  we  shall  be  like  Christ,  and  with  Him, 
seeing  Him  as  He  is. 

[Biblical  criticism  is  a  much  profounder  thing  than 
many  prompt  and  confident  people  have  suspected, 
requiring  both  learning  and  modesty.  If  the  Bible  were 
a  text-book  of  the  observatory  or  laboratory,  or  a  treatise 
of  natural  history,  or  a  simple  narrative  of  facts,  it  would 
be  comparatively  easy  to  pronounce  on  all  its  contents 
and  meanings.  But  remember,  it  contains  specimens  of 
almost  every  kind  of  composition  known  in  literature, 
written  at  intervals  reaching  over  nearly  two  thousand 
years,  abounds  in  the  boldest  and  most  poetic  forms  of 
speech,  and  yet  conveys  to  us  the  few  simple  truths 
relating  to  our  relations  and  duties  to  God  through 
Christ,  which  make  up,  for  every  wayfaring  man  and 
child,  the  way  of  salvation.  Oh,  the  plainness  of  the 
way !  The  longer  I  live,  the  more  I  stand  in  awe  of  its 
simplicity,  and  give  God  thanks  for  it,  and  the  more  I 
disesteem  the  artificial  systems  that  are  built  upon  it, 
or  used  to  overlay  and  crowd  it  aside.  But  when  we  go 
beyond  that  open  learning  of  the  heart,  we  must  be 
guarded  against  shallow  interpretations  and  catch-words. 
A  few  Greek  and  Hebrew  clauses  are  not  enough.  It 
needs  the  largest  appreciation,  and  most  comprehensive 
scope,  and  ripest  maturity,  of  any  study  in  this  world. 
You  may  take  almost  any  crude  fancy  or  pet  system  to 
tlie  Bible,  and  find  something  plausible  in  those  free  and 
affluent  pages  to  support  it.  And  so  books  that  have  the 
look  and  air  of  scholarship  have  often  abused  and  deluded 
thousands,  who  thought  they  were  eating  the  Bread  of 
Life.  Where  the  Word  of  God  is  plain  we  can  walk  with 
firm  steps.     Repentance  toward  God  and  faith  in  the 


26 

Lord  Jesus  Christ  are  verj  intelligible  words.  But  when 
we  go  over  from  certainty  to  conjecture,  let  it  be  with 
slow,  careful,  and  unpretending  steps.] 

*'If  they  shall  say  unto  you.  Behold,  He  is  in  the 
desert ;  go  not  forth :  behold,  He  is  in  the  secret  cham- 
bers ;  believe  it  not.'^ 

Here  are  two  opposite  yet  ever-present  dangers.  One 
is  that  of  fancying  that  our  Saviour  and  our  salvation 
are  to  be  found  in  some  extraordinary,  out-of-the-way 
fashion  of  religious  manifestation :  "  Behold,  He  is  in  the 
desert."  Anything  looks  attractive  and  promising  in 
religion,  to  some  temperaments,  which  lies  aside  from 
the  commonplace  path  of  familiar  well-doing.  That 
soon  tires  and  grows  distasteful.  A  very  prevalent 
temptation  hides  under  this  innocent-looking  passion  for 
novelty.  We  imagine,  with  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  that 
we  should  do  better  in  some  other  and  more  favorable 
condition.  We  fail  to  see  that  there  is  a  deep  sense  in 
which  Christ  presents  Himself  to  us  now  under  the 
forms  of  common  persons  and  things  that  we  meet  in 
our  households  and  business.  If  we  saw  Him,  and  knew 
Him,  and  felt  Him  there,  by  faith,  all  this  dull  routine 
would  take  on  a  new  interest,  and  rise  into  new  dignity. 
The  old  prophets,  with  their  rough  exterior,  haggard 
aspect,  sharp  cry,  and  fierce  eloquence,  used  to  make  their 
appearance  by  coming  out  of  solitary  and  desert  places. 
So  excitable  people,  wanting  some  stimulus  to  whet 
their  dull  desire,  looked  out  into  the  wilderness.  Only 
blow  a  trumpet,  and  point  to  a  new  John  or  Jeremiah, 
and  the  Church  will  seem  to  be  awaking  to  new  life. 
Christ  is  coming.  But  no;  Go  ye  not  forth.  He  sol- 
emnly says.  He  comes  to  you,  in  His  own  time  and 
way.  Invite  Him  where  you  are.  Open  to  Him  your 
heart,  without  changing  your  place.     Most  of  us  have  to 


27 

become  acquainted  with  Him,  and  learn  to  sit  at  His 
feet,  where  our  lot  is  cast,  or  we  never  find  Him  at  all. 
There  is  a  fringe  of  desert  lying  all  around  us,  and  there 
are  novelties  enough  coming  out  of  it,  and  voices  enough 
to  cry,  "  Lo,  there  is  Christ,  in  some  new  ritualism,  or 
new  revivalism,  or  new  rationalism."  Believe  it  not. 
It  is  a  false  Christ.  The  old  creeds,  the  old  duties,  the 
old  ordinances,  the  old  prayers,  and  praises,  and  confes- 
sions ;  the  old  charities,  kindnesses,  graces,  forbearances, 
—  the  sweeter  for  being  old, —  keep  to  these ;  fill  them 
up  with  a  fervent,  thankful,  holy  heart.  And  when 
Christ  has  any  new  disclosure  or  gift  to  make  to  you,  it 
shall  meet  you  there,  shining  through  all  the  sky  of  your 
inner  life,  from  east  to  west,  and  making  for  you,  in  the 
stronger  light  of  His  love,  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth. 
The  other  danger  is  that  we  shall  fancy  that  our  Sav- 
iour and  our  salvation  are  to  be  found  in  particular  states 
of  our  own  interior  feeling :  ^^  Behold,  He  is  in  the  secret 
chambers."  The  first  was  superstition ;  this  is  fanat- 
icism. The  first  fostered  a  fickle  and  shallow  restless- 
ness ;  this  fosters  a  self-opinionated,  self-confident,  and 
fiistidious  indolence.  The  one  is  the  religion  of  social 
excitement ;  the  other  of  a  dreamy  sentimentality.  The 
one  makes  an  idol  of  an  outward  scene  or  symbol ;  the 
other  of  a  complacent  sensibility.  One  is  led  by  the 
multitude ;  the  other  by  an  idol  in  th(5  heart.  One  is 
an  Athenian  agitator;  the  other  an  Oriental  mystic. 
These  sentimentalists  are  always  asking,  "  How  do  I  feel  ? 
Am  I  happy  ?  Is  my  frame  exalted  ?  Is  my  inner  sense 
acute  and  high?"  But,  ah!  mistaken  dreamer,  Christ  is 
not  there.  Come  out  of  your  secret  chambers ;  you  may 
go  there,  and  shut  your  door,  only  to  pray  and  commune 
with  Him,  for  refreshment,  after  and  before  your  busy 
work  in  the  world.     Frames  of  feeling  are  no  tests  of 


28 

your  progress.  An  honest,  healthy,  robust,  out-of-door 
faith  is  what  you  want.  Plain  duties,  homely  piety,  cheer- 
ful submission,  regular  worship, — Christ  is  waiting  for 
you  in  all  of  these.  In  the  morning,  take  up  the  morning's 
cross.  "Walk  with  Christ  all  day.  "Working  under  Him 
is  watching  for  Him.  And  then,  whether  He  shall  come 
at  the  first  watch,  or  in  the  second,  or  at  noon-day,  or  at 
evening.  Blessed  is  the  servant  whom  He  shall  find  so 
watching  I 


CHEIST  IN  JUDGMENT. 

Third  Sunday  in  Advent. 

'•Fob  we  must  all  appear  before  the  judgment  seat  of  Christ." — 
II.  Cor.  V.  10. 

In  the  four  weeks  of  Advent  we  regard  Him  who  wa3 
to  come,  and  who  has  come,  and  who  is  to  come  again, 
not  only  in  His  other  characters,  but  as  our  Judge. 

There  are  some  parts  of  the  truth  that  God  will  have 
delivered  which  make  the  messenger  stand  in  awe  of  his 
message.  It  is  so  with  what  is  revealed  of  the  retribu- 
tions of  eternity.  In  whatever  degree  we  realize  the 
words  we  speak,  we  shall  wish  those  words  to  have  very 
little  that  can  be  called  our  own  in  them.  We  shall  be 
anxious  that  they  shall  only  represent,  as  simply  as  pos- 
sible, the  announcements  that  are  made  on  the  authority 
from  which  there  is  no  appeal. 

Indeed,  there  is  so  much  of  this  judgment-language 
in  all  portions  of  the  Bible  that  I  shall  set  myself  smaller 
limits  yet,  and  only  attempt  to  open  before  you  what  is 
taught  us  by  it  from  the  lips  of  the  Saviour  himself.  It 
is  not  so  much  in  the  hearing  of  many  warnings  as  it  is 
in  the  realizing  and  remembering  of  a  few ;  it  is  not  so 
much  in  having  the  scenes  of  final  judgment  made 
familiar  as  it  is  in  making  the  outlines  clear  and  strong, 
so  that  we  shall  see  whatever  we  do  see  as  definite 
and  undeniable  realities, — that  we  are  to  expect  deep 


30  CHRIST  IN    JUDGMENT. 

and  practical  impressions.  This  is  the  way  of  the  Script- 
ures. They  do  not  deal  much,  like  many  of  their  weak 
interpreters,  in  elaborate  descriptions  of  that  Great  Day 
of  Reckoning,  or  of  the  sufferings  beyond.  What  they 
are  earnest  t6  have  us  all  know,  and  feel,  and  remember, 
is  that  there  is  a  Reckoning,  and  that  the  Justice  and 
Love  of  the  Son  of  God  and  Son  of  Man  will  control  and 
guide  it.  What  they  would  make  certain  to  us  is  that 
our  everlasting  life  is  in  actual  peril  from  our  daily 
temptations  ;  that  the  Judge  is  just ;  and  that  there  can 
be  no  change  in  His  judgment.  Grounded  in  these 
certainties  their  one  entreaty  is,  "  Be  ye  ready." 

You  hear  it  said  that  the  judgment  is  going  on  now ; 
that  we  are  judged  from  hour  to  hour.  That  is  true, 
and  a  truth  of  very  awful  and  startling  import,  which 
ought  never  to  be  forgotten.  In  one  sense  our  own  char- 
acter and  conduct  judge  us.  What  we  really  are  deter- 
mines our  condition.  Every  new  message  from  the  Spirit 
of  God  judges  us.  We  are  always  taking  sides,  for  God 
or  against  Him.  In  the  presence  of  a  pure  and  noble 
Person  we  are  always  judged, —  sent  to  the  right  hand 
or  the  left.  By  conscience,  by  the  choice  between  right 
and  wrong,  we  are  sundered  terribly,  one  from  another, 
at  this  moment.  By  His  very  coming  on  earth  amongst 
men  Christ  in  that  sense  judges  men.  But  that  is  not 
all.  It  is  not  the  only  judgment.  It  is  not  that  Judg- 
ment to  Come,  of  which  our  Lord  so  plainly  declares 
that  it  shall  he  hereafter. 

Men  are  swayed  by  their  best  sympathies.  I  find, 
from  a  generous  thinker,  an  English  preacher,  who  has 
had  great  popularity  in  oar  day,  these  sentences : 
"  Christ's  preaching  differed  from  that  of  John  the  Fore- 
runner, in  that  it  was  not  a  ministry  of  terror.  He  sel- 
dom appealed  to  fear.     Christ  taught  that  God  is  love. 


CHRIST   IN    JUDGMENT.  31 

He  instructed  in  those  parables  which  required  thought- 
ful attention,  and  a  gently  sensitive  conscience.  He 
spoke  didactic,  calm  discourses,  very  engaging,  but  with 
little  excitement  in  them, — which  assuredly,  if  any  one 
were  to  venture  so  to  speak  before  a  modern  congrega- 
tion, would  be  stigmatized  as  a  moral  essay."  Fair 
minds  will  recognize  at  once  a  certain  amount  of  truth 
in  this  very  one-sided  statement.  The  question  is  one  of 
fact :  Did  Christ  appeal  to  the  dread  of  retribution  ? 

There  can  be  no  question  at  all  that  He,  the  Son  of  the 
God  of  Love,  the  highest  of  all  Teachers,  places  love, 
as  a  motive,  far  above  fear ;  that  He  will  rather  have 
men  come  to  Him  as  their  Friend  than  as  their  Judge ; 
that  He  would  have  them  cling  to  righteousness  for  the 
righteous  One's  sake,  and  put  faith  in  God  for  His 
goodness,  rather  than  be  scourged  into  the  Kingdom  by 
tlireats  of  penalty  and  the  terror  of  torment.  Let  this 
be  granted,  for  it  is  precious  and  momentous  truth. 
Where  it  is  forgotten,  let  it  be  reaffirmed.  But  having 
granted  it  we  shall  only  be  in  the  better  position  to  see 
how  defective  and  superficial  these  statements  quoted 
are,  taken  as  a  full  description  of  Christ's  Gospel. 
Wliat  man  might  be  and  ought  to  be,  in  his  suscepti- 
bility to  the  higher  range  of  impressions  is  one  thing; 
but  what  he  really  is,  in  his  spiritual  poverty  and  dul- 
ness,  is  what  Christ  mercifully  considers. 

We  are  not  at  liberty  to  take  an  ideal  Christendom, 
the  conception  of  which  we  owe  to  the  loftier  elements 
of  our  own  religion,  and  attempt  to  square  to  that  the 
words  of  Him  who  came  to  stir  and  move  the  world 
that  now  is  by  "  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come." 
That  is  the  true  love  which  moves  by  the  surest  path, 
not  always  the  shortest  or  most  agreeable,  to  its  end, — 
the  welfare  of  the  beloved. 


32  CHRIST   IN    JUDGMENT. 

We  should  expect,  therefore,  that  this  \oving  Lord 
and  Master,  who  knows  so  well  what  is  in  man,  w^onld 
present  not  a  part  but  all  of  the  grand  motives  that 
constrain  men  to  newness  of  life,  to  repentance  and 
faith,  to  the  conquest  of  self,  and  the  glory  of  good- 
ness ;  and  therefore  that  He  would  sometimes  take  away 
the  veil  from  the  misery  and  horror  that  belong  to  the 
second  death;  that  He  will  bid  His  servants  sometimes 
call  men  to  "  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come,"  and  by  "  the 
terrors  of  the  Lord," — of  the  Lord — to  persuade  men ; 
that  he  would  show  that  God  has  not  forgotten  to  be 
just,  hecause  He  has  not  forgotten  to  be  gracious,  but 
that  He  governs  the  world  by  law, — blessed  and  right- 
eous law,  which  is  "  the  mother  of  our  peace  and  joy," 
— just  as  truly  now  as  before  the  Gospel  pity  and 
redemption  came. 

We  turn  to  the  actual  instructions  of  the  Saviour  to 
refute  the  assertion  that  He  spoke  only  "  calm,  didactic  dis- 
courses," addressed  to  men's  hopes  and  affections,  "  with 
little  excitement  in  them."  We  open,  at  the  beginning, 
that  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  it  is  pretended  is  so  far 
from  anything  that  excites  the  fear  of  punishment  or 
judgment.  It  has  proceeded  but  a  little  way  when  we 
find  the  Teacher  threatening  the  people,  that  unless  their 
righteousness  shall  exceed  the  righteousness  of  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees,  they  shall  "  in  no  case  enter  into 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven."  A  little  further,  and  we 
hear  Him  say,  "  Whosoever  is  angry  with  his  brother 
without  a  cause,  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judgment ;  and 
whosoever  shall  say,  Thou  fool,  shall  be  in  danger  of 
hell  fire."  A  little  further,  and  he  cries,  with  the  repeti- 
tion of  a  fearful  emphasis,  "  If  thy  right  eye,  or  thy 
right  hand,  cause  thee  to  sin,  pluck  it  out,  or  cut  it  off, 
and  cast  it  from  thee ;  for  it  is  profitable  for  thee  that 


CHRIST   IN    JUDGMENT.  33 

one  of  thy  members  should  perish,  and  not  that  thy 
whole  body  should  be  cast  into  hell."  A  little  further 
yet,  in  the  same  Divine  Sermon,  He  begins  to  speak  very 
solemnly  of  "  the  broad  way  which  leadeth  to  destruc- 
tion," and  "  the  narrow  way  which  leadeth  unto  life," 
and  the  "  few  that  find  it."  Then  He  passes  to  warn  those 
that  come  to  the  gate,  crying, "  Lord,  Lord,"  without  doing 
His  will,  that  at  a  certain  day  He  will  profess  unto  them, 
"  I  never  knew  you ;  depart  from  me,  ye  that  work 
iniquity."  Then  comes  the  parable, — which  is  only  a 
picture  and  prophecy  of  the  last  judgment, — of  the  house 
on  the  rock  and  the  house  on  the  sand,  with  destruction 
as  the  penalty  of  folly.  Only  one  chapter  further  for- 
ward He  calls  up  the  vision  of  many  coming  from  the 
East  and  the  West,  with  the  unworthy  and  false  children 
of  the  Kingdom  "cast  out  into  outer  darkness;  there 
shall  be  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth."  We  turn  a 
leaf  or  two,  and  the  same  faithful  voice,  loving  as  ever, 
but  faithful  just  because  it  is  loving,  is  exclaiming, "  Fear 
Him  who  is  able  to  destroy  both  soul  and  body  in  hell." 
In  the  next  chapter.  He  is  upbraiding,  tenderly,  the  peo- 
ple before  whom  His  mighty  works  have  been  done, — 
just  as  they  are  done  before  so  many  of  us, — "  in  vain," — 
"  because  they  repented  not "  ; — "  it  shall  be  more  toler- 
able, in  the  day  of  judgment,  for  Tyre  and  Sidon,  than 
for  you."  ("  Thou  that  art  exalted  to  heaven  shalt  be 
brought  down  to  hell.")  Just  after.  He  rebukes  the 
impious  blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  with  a  threat 
which  almost  silences  our  lips, — "It  shall  not  be  forgiven 
him,  neither  in  this  world,  neither  in  the  world  to  come." 
This  He  follows  with  the  almost  equally  appalling  decla- 
ration,— "Every  idle  word  that  men  shall  speak,  they 
shall  give  account  thereof  in  the  day  of  judgment." 
When  He  has   spoken  the   parable  of  the  tares  of  the 


34  CHRIST   IN    JUDGMENT. 

field,  He  finishes  and  applies  it  with  the  words,—"  The 
tares  are  the  children  of  the  wicked  one  ;  the  enemy  that 
sowed  them  is  the  de\ril ;  the  harvest  is  the  end  of  the 
world,  and  the  reapers  are  the  angels.  So  shall  it  be  in 
the  end  of  this  world.  The  Son  of  Man  shall  send  forth 
His  angels,  and  they  shall  gather  out  of  His  kingdom  all 
things  that  offend,  and  them  which  do  iniquity,  and  shall 
cast  them  into  a  furnace  of  fire :  there  shall  be  wailing 
and  gnashing  of  teeth."  When  He  has  delivered  the 
parable  of  the  net  cast  into  the  sea,  he  explains, "  So  shall 
it  be  at  the  end  of  the  world :  the  angels  shall  come 
forth  and  sever  the  wicked  from  among  the  just,  and  shall 
cast  them  into  the  furnace  of  fire."  Out  of  the  sorrow 
and  burden  of  His  soul.  He  cries,  weeping,"  Woe  unto  the 
world  because  of  ofiences !  Woe  to  that  man  by  whom 
the  offence  cometh !"  He  shows  the  forgiven  servant  who 
had  no  compassion  on  his  fellow  servant  as  "  delivered 
to  the  tormentors  "  ;  and  he  says,  "  So  likewise  shall  my 
Heavenly  Father  do  also  unto  you,  if  ye  from  your  hearts 
forgive  n^t  every  one  his  brother  their  trespasses."  In 
a  different  parable  yet,  wicked  men  are  miserably 
destroyed ;  the  kingdom  is  taken  from  them ;  and  on 
whomsoever  the  stone  of  retribution  falls,  "  it  will  grind 
him  to  powder."  In  still  another  parable,  the  guest  that 
pushes  his  way  in,  without  the  wedding  garment  of  holi- 
ness, prepared  for  him  at  the  door,  is  bound  hand  and 
foot,  and  taken  away,  and  cast  into  utter  darkness.  Of 
one  class  of  sinners  before  His  face  He  asks,  as  if  the 
burden  of  an  unutterable  grief  pressed  upon  him  in  having 
exhausted  every  resource  of  mercy  for  them  in  vain, — 
"  How  can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of  hell  ?"  The 
exhortation  to  watch  and  be  ready  is  followed  by  the 
example  of  the  drunken  and  reckless  servant  whose  por- 
tion is  cut  suddenly  asunder,  leaving  him  to  weep  and 


CHRIST   IK    JUDGMENT.  35 

groan  in  agony.  Yon  know  how  the  parable  of  the  wise 
and  foolish  virgins  ends, — with  the  solemn  and  final 
shutting  of  the  door ;  that  of  the  talents,  with  the  strip- 
ping and  shame  of  the  faithless  servant ;  and,  above  all, 
that  of  the  shepherd  king,  the  Son  of  Man  in  his  glory, 
dividing  and  separating  the  sheep  from  the  goats,  on  the 
right  hand  and  the  left, — the  blessed  and  the  cursed, — 
these  going  away  into  everlasting  punishment,  but  the 
righteous  into  life  eternal ! 

You  will  see,  dear  friends,  that  there  must  be  some 
limit  set  to  these  proofs  and  confirmations.  I  have  only 
collected  these  from  a  portion  of  the  first  of  the  four 
Records  of  Christ's  public  ministry.  So  He  preached. 
So  He  came  testifying  of  the  judgment  to  come.  You 
hear  His  words.  Mine  are  nothing.  Ponder  His.  Ask 
yourselves  what  they  mean.  Take  them  in  their  natural, 
obvious,  and  tremendous  import.  What  shall  we  say  of 
a  writer  who,  having  the  New  Testament  before  his  eyes, 
tells  us  Jesus  preached  gently  always,  and  did  not  preach 
terror  ?  Are  these  the  "  didactic,  calm  discourses,  very 
engaging,  but  with  little  excitement  in  them "  ?  Is  it 
so  unlike  the  preaching  of  the  Baptist,  crying,  "  The  axe 
is  laid  unto  the  root  of  the  tree  :  every  tree  that  bringeth 
not  forth  good  fruit  is  cut  down  and  cast  into  the  fire" ; 
"  Whose  fan  is  in  his  hand,  and  He  will  thoroughly  purge 
His  floor,  and  gather  the  wheat  into  His  garner ;  but  the 
chaff  He  will  burn  with  unquenchable  fire  "  ?  Are  these 
those  placid  parables  which  "required  only  thoughtful 
attention,  and  a  gently  sensitive  conscience,"  sounding 
"  to  a  modern  congregation  like  moral  essays  "  ? — these 
with  their  fire,  and  sifting,  and  separating,  and  shutting 
doors,  and  sundering  of  soul  from  soul,  and  opening  of 
the  house  of  torment,  and  punishment  everlasting?  Let 
us  at  least  receive  our  Master's  words  as  they  stand.     It 


36  CHKIST   IN    JUDGMENT. 

will  go  ill  witli  us  if  we  alter  them,  if  we  reject  them. 
Prejudice,  the  power  of  a  preconceived  idea,  works 
strange  results  of  interpretation.  We  have  not  to 
rewrite  the  Gospel  of  our  Lord.  He  who  knew  all 
our  necessities  gave  it  all  for  our  salvation.  And  since 
we  must  all  stand  before  His  judgment  seat,  He  has  told 
us  beforehand,  so  that  repenting  and  believing  we  might 
stand  there  with  joy, — not  with  grief, — to  pass  from  it 
to  the  right  hand,  and  not  the  left,  of  the  Son  of  Man  in 
His  glory,  our  Shepherd,  and  our  King. 

The  question  is  not  about  the  imagery,  but  whether 
the  imagery  has  a  meaning ;  not  whether  the  terms  are 
partly  figurative,  but  whether  the  figures  have  a  reality 
behind  them. 

It  has  become  a  habit  to  confuse  the  strong  and  simple 
declarations  made  here  with  subordinate  and  irrelevant 
speculations  as  to  the  mode,  the  time,  and  the  place. 
The  text  sweeps  these  all  away,  and  our  poor  subterfuges 
and  evasions  with  them.  "  For  we  must  all  appear  before 
the  judgment  seat  of  Christ,"  not  here  or  there,  or  at 
any  foretold  hour,  or  in  any  scenery  that  is  described : 
only,  "  we  must  appear." 

The  infirm  and  worldly  heart,  clinging  to  its  wrong 
indulgencies,  half-conscious  of  its  guilt,  seizes  on  a  screen 
from  the  blaze  of  the  judgment  throne.  "  This  notion 
of  judgment  is  harsh, —  Jewish ;  —  Christianity  is  all  ten- 
derness ;  God  is  too  good  to  cast  even  the  worst  of  His 
rebellious  and  sinful  subjects  from  Him." 

Argument  in  its  place ;  not  here.  We  are  out  of  that 
sphere.  "  We  must  all  appear  before  the  judgment  seat 
of  Christ."  We  must  The  first  fact  we  are  to  think 
of  respecting  the  judgment  is  the  certainty  of  it.  The 
Scriptures  never  say,  our  Lord  never  says,  that  it  is  some- 
thing which  may  take  place,  but  which  some  possible 


CHEIST   IN    JUDGMENT.  37 

contingency  in  tlie  future  course  of  the  world  may  pre- 
vent. Whatever  else  may  fail  or  prosper, —  enterprises, 
governments,  expeditions,  colonies,  campaigns,  intentions, 
—  their  failure  or  their  success  will  not  touch  the  decree 
that  has  fixed  one  day  beyond  them  all, — the  judgment. 
There  is  scarcely  one  human  interest,  institution,  under- 
taking, of  which  we  can  predict  the  course  for  twenty- 
four  hours ;  but  far  above  all  their  chances,  independent 
of  them  all,  subject  to  no  chance,  no  reconsideration,  no 
postponement,  is  the  judgment.  The  whole  frame-work 
of  order  in  outward  nature  may  be  broken  to  pieces; 
the  heavens  be  wrapped  together  like  a  scroll,  the  ele- 
ments melt  with  fervent  heat,  the  planet  be  refashioned, 
or  burnt,  or  drowned,  the  stars  be  loosened  from  their 
circles,  and  clash  together,  or  fly  apart, —  these  revolutions 
would  only  make  more  sure  the  fulfilment  of  the  whole 
prophecy,  and  their  inevitable  end  will  be  the  judgment. 
So  doubtful  and  ignorant  are  we  about  everything  in  our 
own  personal  lives  and  fortunes,  from  this  hour  onward, 
that  we  can  be  said  to  be  perfectly  sure  of  only  two 
events  to  come :  "  It  is  appointed  unto  men  once  to  die, 
and  after  this  the  judgment."  And  "now,"  says  the 
Apostle,  "  God  commandeth  all  men  everywhere  to  re- 
pent; because  He  hath  appointed  a  day  in  the  which 
He  will  judge  the  world  in  righteousness."  It  must  he. 
The  second  fact  is  the  universality  of  it.  We  must 
all  appear.  Here  the  individual  sometimes  escapes 
notice  either  by  retiring  from  society,  or  by  being  lost 
in  its  crowd.  There  the  one  kind  of  concealment  will 
be  just  as  hopeless  as  the  other.  There  will  be  room 
enough  for  all,  and  yet  the  personal  soul  of  each,  with 
its  individual  character,  with  the  sign  of  Christ  its  Lord 
or  the  sign  of  His  adversary  upon  it,  will  stand  out  as 
sharply  distinguished  as  if  no  other  soul  had  ever  been 


38  CHRIST   IN    JUDGMENT. 

related  to  it,  or  shared  its  experience.  They  will  come 
from  lonely  deserts  and  from  thickly  populated  cities, 
from  scattered  houses  far  back  in  villages,  from  border- 
dwellings  on  the  edges  of  forests,  from  solitary  cells  in 
hills  and  on  plains,  from  homes  that  resound  now  with 
voices  of  life,  from  chambers  of  dreary  sickness  where  a 
charitable  visitor  entered  to  break  the  stillness  only  once 
in  the  long  week,  from  the  field  of  war  where  great 
armies  fought  together,  and  from  the  same  field  the 
night  after  the  battle  when  the  spirit  of  the  dying  sol- 
dier went  up  to  meet  its  God  alone ;  but  they  will  all 
bo  there ;  we  shall  all  be  there ;  every  one.  There  will 
be  no  excuse  taken,  and  there  will  be  no  absence  to 
be  excused.  Merchandise,  the  farm,  marriage,  mental 
promises,  getting  a  livelihood,  calls  of  business,  sceptical 
habits  of  mind,  companies  and  journeys  of  pleasure, 
doubts  about  being  accepted, — these  will  have  no  force 
to  keep  one  bidden  guest  away,  and  all  are  bidden. 
Every  name  will  be  called, — those  that  have  been 
written  in  the  Book  of  Life,  and  the  names  of  those 
that  have  heard  the  Gospel  preached  Sunday  after 
Sunday,  and  year  after  year,  and  yet  would  not  turn  to 
take  the  cross  and  follow  Christ.  Every  member  of  this 
present  congregation  will  be  there,  and  that  may  be  the 
next  time  we  shall  all  be  assembled  in  one  another's 
presence  without  one  left  out.  Obscurity,  insignificance, 
weakness,  youth,  poverty,  ignorance, —  those  natural 
extenuations  that  we  so  often  plead  for  not  taking  up 
responsibilities  here,  will  not  keep  any  out  there ;  many 
that  were  last  shall  be  first,  and  so,  also,  many  that  were 
first  shall  be  last.  Station  and  dignities  and  wealth  and 
honors  will  avail  nothing  to  obtain  an  exemption  or  a 
substitution.  The  guilty,  the  careless,  the  sensualist, 
the  mocker,  the  trifler,  the  old  man  here  that  is  coming 


ClIKIST    IN    JUDGMENT.  39 

to  his  grave  with  his  heart  hard  and  selfish,  the  merchant 
here  who  imagines  he  has  no  time  to  be  a  Cliristian,  the 
scholar  that  dreams  he  can  make  learning  and  accom- 
plishments pass  for  repentance  toward  God  and  faith  in 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  profane  swearer,  the  scandal- 
monger and  uncharitable  tale-bearer,  the  proud,  resentful 
woman,  the  wilful  boy  who  is  trying  to  forget  his 
mother's  prayers,  the  vain  gh'l  who  thinks  of  every 
dress  for  her  body  but  that  one  which  will  be  put  on  her 
for  her  burial, — all  of  us  must  appear  before  the  judg- 
ment seat  of  Christ. 

The  third  fact  is  that  we  must  ajp^ear  there ;  that  is, 
we  must  be  not  only  present,  but  our  true  characters 
must  be  made  manifest ;  what  is  here  kept  hidden  must 
come  to  light.  We  pray,  every  Sunday,  to  Him  "to 
whom  all  hearts  are  open,  and  from  whom  no  secrets  are 
hid."  In  that  day,  this  Searcher  and  Reader  of  our  hearts 
will  take  us  up,  and  deal  with  us.  Faith  will  stand  out 
boldly.  Purity  will  shine  in  garments  white  as  the  light. 
Long-abused  innocence  will  get  its  due.  Misunderstood 
charity  and  wrongly  suspected  integrity  will  come  forth 
out  of  their  cloud,  in  triumph  and  joy.  "Holy  and 
humble  men  of  heart "  will  be  seen  for  what  they  are. 

Deception  and  concealment  will  have  had  their  crafty 
way  long  enough.  Masks  will  fall  off.  Disguises  will  be 
stripped  aside.  The  cunning  sagacity  that  has  covered  up 
the  lurking  passion,  or  the  cool  calculation,  will  lose  its 
self-possession.  Whatever  wicked  thing  we  have  been  at 
most  pains  to  conceal  will  be  written  out  as  with  a  pen  of 
fire  on  our  foreheads.  There  will  be  only  one  covering 
for  our  shame, — and  that  the  robe  of  the  mercy  prom- 
ised to  them  who  believe.  There  is  a  fountain  for  un- 
cleanness.  Purge  me  in  that,  and  I  shall  be  clean! 
Wash  me  in  that,  and  I  shall  be  whiter  than  snow ! 


4:0  CHRIST   IN    JUDGMENT. 

The  only  thing  furtlier  that  it  much  concerns  ns  to 
know  of  the  judgment  is  that  He  who  then  reveals  our 
hearts  and  fixes  our  condition,  the  Judge,  is  the  Son  of 
God  and  the  Son  of  Man.  Eepeatedly  Christ  says  that 
His  work,  while  on  earth,  in  His  first  coming,  is  not 
judgment.  Here  "I  judge  no  man."  Here  He  min- 
isters life;  will  we  receive  it?  Here  He  ofiers  grace; 
will  we  accept  it?  Here  He  opens  the  way  into  His 
kingdom ;  will  we  enter  ?  Here  He  suffers  and  dies,  the 
one  perfect,  sufficient,  only  sacrifice;  can  we  believe, 
confess,  and  live  ?  There,  on  His  throne,  all  judgment  is 
committed  unto  Him,  "  because  He  is  the  Son  of  Man." 
He  knows  all  man's  infirmity,  to  have  compassion ;  all 
man's  sympathy  with  evil,  to  punish.  It  is  not  then  the 
time  of  salvation.  The  time  of  salvation  is  now.  Our 
opportunity  is  to-day.  In  that  day,  every  work  will  be 
brought  into  judgment,  and  every  secret  thing.  Every 
work  I    Every  secret  thing ! 


THE  EIGHTEOUSNESS   OF  GOD,  AND 
UPEIGHTNESS  IN  MAN. 

Fourth  Sunday  after  Advent, 

"  Righteousness  and  judgment  are  the  habitation  of  His  throne." 
— Psalm  xcvii.  3. 

"Petee  answered  and  said  unto  her,  Tell  me  whether  ye  sold  the 
land  for  so  muoh.  And  she  said,  Yea,  for  so  much.  Then  Peter 
said  unto  her,  How  is  it  that  ye  have  agreed  together  to  tempt  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord?  Behold,  the  feet  of  them  that  have  buried  thy 
husband  are  at  the  door,  and  shall  carry  thee  out.'' — Acts  v.  8,  9. 

In  the  first  passage  we  are  shown  the  principles  upon 
which  the  universe  is  carried  on  through  the  everlasting 
ages.  Thej  are  very  simple,  though  they  are  very 
grand.  First,  there  is  a  living  God,  living  now,  not 
passing  away  with  passing  periods,  or  a  mere  tradition 
of  the  old  Bible-days,  but  alive  all  days. 

Next  He  has  a  "  Throne"  ;  not  only  a  life,  not  only  a 
dwelling-place,  not  only  boundless  fields  to  work  in,  and 
not  only  a  kind  heart,  but  a  throne.  The  psalm  begins, 
"  The  Lord  reign eth."  This  world,  with  everybody  in 
it,  is  not  only  under  a  government,  but  under  a  personal 
Governor.  Modern  science  is  right  about  everything 
being  done  by  law ;  only  revelation  uncovers  to  science 
a  secret  of  its  own.  Beliind  the  law  is  a  Law-ffiver  and 
a  Judge, — a  truth. of  quite  as  much  practical  value  to  us, 
in  the  long  run,  as  the  other.  The  history  of  man  on 
the  globe  is  not  a  spontaneous  generation.     The  machine 


42  THE     RIGHTEOUSNESS     OF   GOD, 

of  nature  is  not  running  itself.  The  seasons  and  the 
harvests,  the  streams  and  the  stars,  house-keeping,  schools, 
trade,  politics,  are  not  the  human  contrivance  of  "per- 
petual motion."  There  may  be  a  good  deal  of  meaning 
in  such  popular  words  as  "self-reliance,"  "independ- 
ence," "the  power  of  the  will,"  "man  the  master  of 
circumstances,"  "dignity  of  human  nature";  but  then, 
after  all,  there  is  a  Throne,  and  One  sits  on  it  who  is  not 
man.  We  talk  of  self-reliance,  but  the  reliance  at  least 
is  upon  Him.  Of  Him,  it  is  finally  found  out,  we  are 
never  independent.  As  to  the  power  of  the  will,  when 
it  has  done  its  best,  it  brings  up  against  another  Will, 
more  powerful  than  itself,  immeasurably  more.  There 
turn  out  to  be  circumstances  of  which  we  are  not  mas- 
ters, by  any  means.  The  stopping  of  pulse  and  breath 
is  one  of  them.  Human  nature  has,  to  be  sure,  a  kind 
of  dignity,  but  there  is  a  greatness  infinitely  more  royal, 
and  a  glory  more  glorious. 

Then  we  know  what  the  Throne  is  made  of,  and 
what  He  who  occupies  it  keeps  there  forever  with 
Him.  We  are  not  governed  by  caprice,  by  impulse,  by 
policy,  by  passion,  by  indiscriminate  indulgence.  There 
are  principles  of  this  rule  over  us,  and  their  names  are 
given, — "  Kighteousness  and  judgment  are  the  habi- 
tation of  His  throne."  They  are  not  there  now  and 
then  ;  they  inhabit  or  abide  there.  They  inhere  in  the 
character  of  the  living  King. 

Over  all  this  world,  then — this  is  what  the  first  pas- 
sage says — over  you  and  me,  personally — reigns  the 
living,  righteous,  just  Lord. 

The  second  passage  discloses  a  different  sight.  It 
takes  us  to  the  opposite  extremity  of  the  moral  king- 
dom,— from  the  top  to  the  bottom.  "  Self-reliance," 
separating  itself  from  God  as  far  as  it  can,  has  made  its 


AND   UPRIGHTNESS    IN    MAN.  43 

experiment,  worked  out  its  ambitious  result  of  "inde- 
pendence," and  here  it  is.  "  Tell  me  whether  ye  sold 
the  land  for  so  much.  She  said,  Yea,  for  so  much." 
The  doctrine  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  left  to 
itself,  breaking  away  from  the  "  Throne,"  has  come  to 
this;  and  it  does  not  appear  to  good  advantage.  It 
appears  with  a  fraud  branded  on  its  forehead,  a  false 
invoice  in  its  hand,  and  a  lie  upon  its  lips,  the  criminal 
victim  of  a  capital  execution.  "  Then  fell  she  down 
straightway  at  his  feet  and  yielded  up  the  ghost ;  and 
the  young  men  came  in  and  found  her  dead,  and  carry- 
ing her  forth  buried  her  by  her  husband.  And  great 
fear  came  upon  all  the  Church."  'No  matter  whether 
the  miracle  happens  once  or  every  day.  It  is  simply 
the  type  of  a  law  inevitable  and  universal.  Whether 
the  outer  stroke  should  ever  be  repeated  or  not,  it  was 
only  the  visible  sign  of  a  thing  that  is  always  going  on 
while  the  world  stands, — unrighteousness  blasted,  lying 
exposed,  the  cheating  man  and  the  cheating  woman,  in 
spite  of  their  skill  in  concealment,  sent  down  at  last  to 
misery. 

In  the  two  parts  of  the  text,  therefore,  we  have  the 
same  foundation-truth  of  our  religion, — -personal  in- 
tegrity the  criterion  of  life  or  death.  In  the  first  it 
shines  out  in  the  splendor  of  the  great  white  Throne, 
with  the  rainbow  bending  its  glorious  beauty  around  it. 
In  the  last  it  is  thundered  forth  along  the  low  line  of 
an  earthly  horizon,  out  of  a  horror  of  great  darkness,  lit 
up  only  by  the  lightning-flash  of  God's  "consuming 
fire." 

Among  the  characteristics  of  the  times  we  are  living 
in  there  is  one  not  much  mentioned  by  the  many  popu- 
lar speakers,  who  seem  to  think  the  men  they  speak  to 
are  to  be  benefited  chiefly  by  being  assured^^^gwinuch 

^V^  Of  thb"^ 


44  THE    RIGHTEOUSNESS     OF    GOD, 

wiser  and  better  and  more  "progressive"  they  are  than 
any  of  their  fathers  were,  who  suppose  the  age  is  to  be 
instructed  by  being  flattered,  and  that  the  country  needs 
to  be  glorified  rather  than  to  be  purified  ;  which  was  cer- 
tainly not  the  way  of  the  old  prophets.  The  characteris- 
tic I  mean  is  dishonesty.  1  am  not  discrediting  any 
of  the  actual  modern  merits, — intelligence,  enterprise, 
invention,  philanthropy.  Grant  all  these,  in  large  de- 
gree. Nevertheless,  they  do  not  bring  with  them  hon- 
esty in  proportion.  Falsehood  and  fraud  flourish  along 
with  them,  in  spite  of  them,  and  in  some  cases  by  the 
help  of  them.  From  the  vulgar  sediment  of  society  up 
to  its  highest  summits  there  spreads  a  tremendous  force 
of  selfish  materialism — call  it  sharpness  or  call  it  crime — 
by  which  men  reach  after  and  snatch  and  call  their  own, 
for  use  or  for  show  or  for  hoarding,  what  is  not  theirs. 
It  is  stolen  property,  only  stolen  ingeniously  and  indi- 
rectly, and  in  such  ways  that  the  old  forms  of  law,  which 
under  took  to  punish  outright  robbery,  fail  to  overtake 
them.  E'ot  in  a  few  rare  spots,  but  in  every  spot  where 
two  or  three  hundred  people  live  together,  a  part  of  these 
people  consume,  or  lay  up,  or  waste,  what  belongs  to 
other  people,  and  what  they  have  managed  to  get  by 
some  species  of  deception.  "What  natural  production  of 
the  earth  is  there,  meant  for  the  sustenance  or  comfort 
of  man,  that  is  not  adulterated  by  some  degrading  mix- 
ture, or  shortened  in  the  measure  ?  Do  not  the  devices 
of  Anglo-Saxon  traffic  repeat,  in  faithful  exactness,  the 
devices  of  the  Jew,  denounced  by  the  prophet,  making 
the  ephah  of  the  seller  small,  and  the  shekel  of  the  buyer 
large ;  selling  the  refuse  for  wheat,  and  "  falsifying  the 
balance  by  deceit"  ?  "What  line  of  mechanical  work  is 
there,  where  the  base  material,  or  the  shabby  construc- 
tion, or  the  overcharge,  does  not  disgrace  the  handicraft  ? 


AND    UPRIGHTNESS   IN    MAN.  45 

What  branch  of  commerce  without  its  dehisive  labels, 
its  broken  promises,  its  advertising  fictions,  its  postponed 
payments,  its  calculated  bankruptcies,  its  hollow  con- 
tracts ?  Men  who  will  not  suffer  their  respectability  to 
be  challenged,  look  one  another  in  the  face,  and  with  a 
mutual  jugglery  of  knavish  tricks  conspire  to  grow  rich 
by  villany.  The  brilliant  audacities  of  the  great  com- 
mercig-l  centres  have  their  lame  and  creeping  copies, 
hardly  less  cruel  or  calamitous,  back  in  the  little  rural 
villages,  in  sight  of  grave-yards  where  sleep  the  ashes  of 
clean-handed  ancestors,  living  and  dying,  in  their  day, 
in  the  faith  of  a  God  who  has  righteousness  and  judg- 
ment for  the  habitation  of  His  Throne.  Outside  the 
Church  are  financial  Ahabs  and  social  Jezebels.  Inside 
are  Ananias  and  Sapphira,  tacitly  agreeing  together  to 
lie  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  pretending  to  give  to  God,  for 
missions  or  Bible  societies,  a  hush-money  fragment  of 
what  they  have  seized  from  their  fellow-men.  Too  often 
there  is  no  Peter  with  the  courage  to  search  out  their 
sin, — "  Tell  me  whether  ye  sold  the  land  for  so  much." 
The  grand  difficulty  with  our  popular  piety  is  that  it  is 
still  trying  to  find  a  way,  in  this  nineteenth  century  of 
the  Gospel,  of  serving  two  gods  together. 

If  our  national  Christianity  is  to  maintain  its  respect, 
it  will  have  to  deal  with  these  abominations  somewhat 
more  directly,  more  fearlessly,  and  more  personally,  than 
it  is  doing  now.  Greatly  to  their  credit,  our  cotempor- 
ary  moralists  have  undertaken  to  investigate  crime,  its 
sources,  its  statistics,  and  its  correction.  But  the  crimi- 
nals are  of  two  classes.  One  class,  ill-bred,  ill-fed,  ill- 
clad,  with  little  knowledge,  bad  examples,  and  strong 
temptations,  take  what  they  have  no  right  to  take,  and 
render  no  equivalent.  Another  class,  better  clothed, 
better  educated,  with  a  better  chance  of  living  honestly, 


<^  THE    RIGHTEOUSNESS    OF    GOD, 

perhaps  holding  offices  and  entertaining  flattering  as- 
semblies, do  precisely  the  same  thing.  The  first  class 
perform  their  lawless  work  in  the  dark ;  and  so  do  these. 
The  detected  felons  sometimes  put  on  masks ;  and  what 
else  but  a  mask  are  good  manners  over  an  unprincipled 
heart  ?  The  vagrant  robbers  occasionally  come  together 
and  lay  out  their  schemes  and  count  their  booty.  The 
gentlemanly  robbers  who  haunt  the  lobbies  of  Legis- 
latures, the  municipal  chambers,  the  bribable  courts — 
tramps  of  the  commercial  highways  —  understand  each 
other  with  an  instinct  just  as  keen,  and  a  cunning  just 
as  infamous.  Now,  if  this  is  all  true,  and  if  the  habita- 
tion of  the  living  God  is  righteousness  and  judgment, 
then  what  is  sure  to  come  by  and  by,  when  the  King, 
patient  as  He  is,  uncovers  that  Throne,  and  the  Judge 
finally  brings  these  souls,  one  by  one,  to  the  reckoning  ? 
Are  we  any  safer  than  Ananias  and  Sapphira  ?  Is  this 
a  safe  country  ?  "With  all  its  advantages,  its  celebrations 
of  what  it  has  done,  and  its  loud  predictions  of  what  it 
is  going  to  do,  is  America  resting,  secure  and  approved, 
this  Advent,  at  the  foot  of  God's  righteous  judgment 
seat? 

"  Tell  me  whether  ye  sold  the  land  for  so  much ;  and 
she  said.  Yea !  for  so  much." 

Is  there  any  remedy  ?  The  remedy  will  be  found  by 
finding  through  what  popular  mistakes  the  mischief  has 
crept  in,  and  by  raising  against  them  the  everlasting 
principles  of  the  Bible-morality,  the  old-fashioned  safe- 
guards of  personal  uprightness,  on  the  staunch  com- 
mandments of  a  God  of  righteousness. 

The  unguarded  conversation  of  men  is  the  natural 
revelation  of  them ;  of  their  moral  standards,  if  they 
have  any,  and  of  their  lack  of  them  if  they  have  none. 
We  hear  people  continually  debating  whether  some  line 


AND    UPRIGHTNESS    IN    MAN.  47 

action  will  be  lucrative,  prudent,  or  agreeable ;  politic, 
reputable,  or  successful ;  whether  it  will  serve  some  in- 
terest, or  baffle  some  opponent,  or  advance  some  party. 
But  how  often,  in  all  the  thoroughfares  of  society,  do 
we  hear  an  open  question  shut  and  concluded  by  the 
short,  swift,  clear  argument  of  a  Christian  tongue? 
"  This  is  right,  and  because  it  is  right,  it  must  be  done, 
cost  what  consequences  it  may ;  that  other  thing  is  wrong, 
and  therefore  it  cannot  be  touched,  let  it  promise  to  pay 
what  it  will."  In  the  clamoring  of  calculation  and  profit, 
how  often  is  the  simple  voice  of  Duty  audible  and  deci- 
sive? 

Looking  for  causes,  we  find  that,  among  the  virtues 
which  the  people  honor,  we  have  been  trying  a  good 
deal,  of  late,  to  make  the  softer  virtues  answer  for  the 
sturdier,  and  philanthropy  for  all  the  rest.  It  happened 
by  a  natural  reaction.  In  the  feudalism  and  vassalage 
of  the  middle  ages,  and  under  the  monarchies  of  the  old 
world,  the  tendency  ran  to  physical  cruelty.  Life  was 
cheap.  Liberty  was  crushed.  The  lower  classes  were 
not  too  good  to  suffer  any  sort  of  deprivation.  The 
slave  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  master ;  and  where  that  is 
true,  mercy  always  gives  place,  sooner  or  later,  to  wrath. 
When  the  free  spirit  arose,  and  more  equal  forms  of 
civil  society  were  planted,  the  milder  compassions  and 
gentler  sensibilities  of  Christian  people  came  uppermost. 
So  far  as  the  moral  feelings  were  aroused  at  all,  the  im- 
pulse was  to  make  everybody  comfortable  in  condition 
and  happy  in  mind.  But  there  is  something  higher 
than  that.  Wrongs  were  righted,  not  always  because 
they  were  wrongs,  and  because  rights  are  sacred,  but 
because  suffering  is  disagreeable.  If  a  malefactor  was 
seized  by  the  arm  of  justice,  and  shut  up  in  prison,  an 
indiscriminate  sympathy,  thinking  nothing  of  the  safety 


48 

of  society,  went  about  to  stir  up  public  sympathy  in  his 
behalf,  sent  flowers  and  pictures  and  carpets  to  his  cell, 
tried  to  shorten  his  term  of  punishment,  and,  if  possible, 
to  get  him  out  of  the  hands  of  the  law  altogether. 
1^0 w,* it  must  be  a  hard  heart  which  does  not  recognize 
in  these  kindly  impulses  the  working  of  the  spirit  of 
Christian  charity.  Such  ameliorations  were  needed,  in 
a  degree,  and  thej  came,  and  blessed  were  they  by  whom 
they  came.  But,  after  all,  God  does  not  govern  mankind 
by  an  unqualified  pity,  but  by  mercy  balanced  with  jus- 
tice; by  tenderness  harmonized  with  severity, —  the 
severity  itself  sometimes  being  merciful.  In  mortal 
progress  the  pendulum  swings  from  one  extreme  to 
another.  Probably  in  the  old  social  order  there  were 
some  upright  and  downright  traits,  intermixed  with 
coarser  ones,  which,  as  sons  of  a  God  of  righteousness, 
we  could  not  afford  to  let  go,  and  which  w^e  shall  have 
to  bring  back,  and  plant  side  by  side  with  our  yielding 
charities  and  fair  humanities,  before  we  shall  throw  off 
this  disgrace  of  dishonesty.  There  must  be  more 
respect  for  reality,  and  less  for  show ;  more  willingness 
to  be  poor,  if  God  wills  it ;  less  anxiety  to  hang  out  the 
signals  of  success;  more  simplicity  and  less  extrava- 
gance. Nor  is  there  any  such  thing  possible  as  atoning 
for  a  fraudulent  getting  of  money  by  giving  a  part  of  it 
away.  Ananias  laid  a  part  of  the  proceeds  of  the  land 
at  the  Apostle's  feet  for  the  use  of  the  Church.  It  is 
known  of  one  of  the  foremost  of  American  statesmen 
that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  bestowing  munificent  alms 
impulsively  on  mendicant  people  about  him,  and  letting 
his  debts  go  unpaid.  What  a  wretched  world  this  would 
be  if  the  Almighty  turned  His  ordinances  of  truth  into 
a  confusion  of  unprincipled  indulgences  like  that! 
Kindness  is  always  lovely,  but  kindness  will  not  save  us 


AND   UPRIGHTNESS   IN    MAN.  49 

from  the  consequences,  if  we  do  not  pay  what  we  owe, 
or  if  we  take  more  than  our  due.  An  age  of  mingled 
philanthropy  and  dishonesty  is  not  an  age  of  the  reign 
of  Christ,  whose  name  is  "  the  Lord  our  righteousness." 
Another  mistake  pertains  to  the  realm  of  religion. 
In  almost  any  of  our  communities  you  may  set  ten  per- 
sons to  inquire  into  the  religious  state  of  their  neighbors, 
and  in  nine  cases  of  the  ten  the  first  question  will  be 
about  feelings ;  not,  What  are  your  convictions  of  truth, 
your  principles  of  conduct,  the  root  and  ground  of  your 
faith  in  God,  or  in  the  solid  and  fixed  facts  of  a  revealed 
Gospel  and  historical  kingdom  of  our  Lord  ?  but.  What 
is  your  feeling?  not,  What  are  you  standing  on?  not 
whether  a  holy  Christ  has  your  loyal  and  unflinching 
obedience ;  not  how  far  you  are  practically  pledged  to  a 
righteous  Master, — which  are  certainly  the  chief  matters 
now,  as  they  were  in  the  days  and  the  preaching  of  the 
Apostles, — but  rather  whether  the  sensibilities  are  lively 
and  the  devout  emotions  enthusiastic.  Eeligious  feeling 
is  one  of  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit — one  of  them ;  it  has 
much  to  do  in  kindling  and  sustaining  religious  exertion. 
But  feeling  is  certainly  the  most  irregular  element  in 
our  composition,  and  it  so  far  depends  on  outward  con- 
ditions that  it  makes  one  of  the  least  trustworthy  tests 
of  the  actual  frame  of  a  Christian  soul  before  God. 
Feeling  belongs  to  the  passive  part  of  our  nature ;  prin- 
ciple to  the  active  part.  Feeling  depends  on  a  sensitive 
surface ;  principle  on  depths  of  moral  purity.  We  feel 
spontaneously,  and  often  whether  we  would  or  not. 
There  is  no  principle  and  no  duty  without  a  direct 
exertion  of  the  will.  Feeling  may  be  sudden ;  duty  is 
deliberate.  Feeling  may  be  transient ;  duty  is  constant. 
Feeling  changes  with  temperament,  with  states  of  health 
and  nerves,  with  a  thousand  fickle  external  influences. 


50 

Principle  is  independent  of  all  physical  or  alterable 
circumstances,  moves  straight  on  through  all  moods  and 
climates,  sails  by  fixed  stars,  and  is  the  same  secure  and 
glorious  thing  through  all  the  shifting  seasons,  though 
the  mountains  of  prosperity  were  torn  up  and  cast  into 
the  sea. 

It  deserves  to  be  considered,  therefore,  whether  the 
emotional  type  of  piety  is,  on  the  whole,  the  only  or  the 
strongest  type,  or  is  calculated  to  carry  a  man  bravely 
and  uprightly  through  all  the  temptations  of  the  market 
and  society,  of  public  and  private  life.  Let  us  hope  that 
the  sturdy  common-sense  of  this  people  will  repudiate 
any  ministration  that  addresses  itself  chiefly  to  a  senti- 
mental fancy,  whether  in  the  gusty  appeals  of  open-air 
conventicles,  in  sensational  pulpits,  or  in  the  scenery  of 
church  chancels.  Is  it  not  likely  that  some  part  of  the 
loose  dealings,  and  false  accounts,  and  violated  covenants, 
which  have  frightened  the  propriety  and  shocked  the. 
better  sense  of  all  Christian  bodies,  are  traceable  to  this 
idea,  that  religion  is  concerned  entirely  with  emotions, 
and  not  with  character  ?  Ananias  and  his  wife  had  just 
come  into  the  church,  been  baptized,  joined  the  Christian 
community,  and  their  feelings  were  so  far  wrought  upon 
that  they  wanted  to  follow  where  the  popular  current 
was  then  setting,  and  to  throw  their  private  estate  into 
the  common  treasury,  though  that  was  no  part  of  the 
Christian  obligation,  as  St.  Peter  taught  them.  What 
was  their  sentimental  ardor  worth?  It  did  not  save 
them  from  being  both,  one  after  the  other,  wound  up  in 
shrouds  and  carried  out  to  a  dishonored  burial.  It 
appears  to  me  that,  even  within  the  recollection  of  living 
men,  the  Christian  Faith  has  come  to  be  less  and  less 
regarded  as  a  commanding  and  mighty  power  from 
Heaven,  a  voice  of  authority,  a  law  of  holy  life,  but 


AND   UPRIGHTNESS   IN    MAN.  51 

more  and  more  as  an  easy-going  guide  to  future  enjoy- 
ment, to  a  universal  happiness  and  an  indiscriminate 
salvation.  Who  can  believe  these  horrible  insults  to 
morality  would  go  on  cursing  our  cities,  and  corrupting 
our  young  men,  if  the  offenders  looked  up  above  a  hire- 
ling police,  a  venal  judiciary,  and  a  cowardly  public 
opinion,  and  believed  those  simple  words,  "  Thou,  God, 
seest  me,  who  wilt  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty  "  ?  The 
Gospel  is  a  gift  of  grace ;  but  if  it  does  not  keep  the 
disciple  out  of  the  schemes  of  sharpers  and  liars,  the 
grace  has  miscarried.  The  Gospel  is  love ;  but  it  has  a 
law-element  in  it,  too,  which  the  saintliest  Christian 
never  outgrows.  The  Old  Testament  goes  into  the 
ISTew.  The  Saviour  says  explicitly  He  came  not  to 
destroy  the  law,  but  to  fill  it  full,  and  that  He  is  coming 
again  to  judge  every  follower  by  his  deeds.  If  you  cut 
the  JS'ew  Testament  apart  from  the  Old,  your  one  Bible 
is  gone,  and  rationalism  will  pick  the  fragments  to  pieces 
at  its  leisure.  We  want  that  elder  and  eternal  Testa- 
ment which  gives  us  the  text — "Righteousness  and 
judgment  are  the  habitation  of  His  throne."  See  how 
that  word  "  righteous  "  studs  all  the  Scripture-pages,  and 
how  the  glorious  reality  it  represents  is  the  steadfast 
foundation  of  the  welfare  of  souls,  from  the  first  creation 
on  to  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth. 

We  read  public  reports  of  ardent  religious  agitations. 
Not  a  syllable  shall  my  lips  speak  in  disparagement  of 
religious  revivals.  Till  there  is  more  thought  for  things 
unseen,  in  these  uncounted  dwellings  around  us,  which 
have  now  no  veneration,  no  Lord's  Day,  no  prayer,  no 
sacrament,  no  Advent,  and  no  realized  God,  we  can  ill 
aftbrd  to  despise  any  honest  attempt  to  waken  the  dead 
to  life.  But  we  are  certainly  not  wrong  if,  with  God's 
Bible   in  our  hands,  we  urge  that    the  religion  that 


52  THE    KIGHTEOrSNESS    OF   GOD, 

is  revived  shall  revive  with  it  honesty,  fair  dealing, 
veracity,  chastity,  plain  living  and  faithful  work ;  shall 
bring  on  a  new  epoch  of  duty, — courageous,  clean- 
handed, sweet-hearted  duty,  irreproachable  and  incor- 
ruptible duty — fearing  God  and  keeping  His  command- 
ments. 

How  wise  it  would  be,  too,  if,  in  the  disorganizing 
social  questions  and  the  depressing  commercial  reverses 
of  the  time,  we  could  come  to  look  at  these  problems 
more  in  the  daylight  of  duty,  and  less  under  the  delu- 
sive glamour  of  speculation !  When  markets  are  over- 
loaded and  the  wheels  of  industry  hang  idle;  when 
merchants  go  to  their  counting-rooms  in  the  morning, 
not  to  see  how  much  money  they  can  make,  but  how 
little  they  can  lose ;  when  the  charities  of  the  Church 
are  shrivelled,  and  hope  dies  out  of  the  hearts  of  the 
poor,  not  for  the  want  of  bounty  but  for  the  want  of 
work ;  do  not  imagine  you  can  go  to  the  bottom  of  the 
matter  by  some  disputed  theory  of  currency  or  political 
economy.  Take  God's  law  with  your  account-book. 
Admit,  frankly,  that  enterprise  and  commerce  have  been 
living,  these  last  years,  too  much  on  false  pretenses. 
Own  that  where  business  professed  that  it  was  done  on 
solid  capital,  it  has  been  done  on  bubbles  of  air ;  that 
you  have  walked  in  vain  shadows,  and  called  those 
shadows  property ;  that  you  have  promoted  to  places  of 
honor  men  who  have  asked  to  be  trusted  when  there 
was  nothing  to  trust, —  men  shocked  at  no  duplicity, 
sticking  at  no  excess,  ashamed  of  no  dishonor!  How 
can  any  financial  philosophy  or  turn  of  political  parties 
repair  ruins  wrought  by  sins  like  these  ? 

You  return  from  the  out-of-door  vexations,  for  peace, 
to  your  home.  But  remember  that  even  home,  where 
virtue  generally  makes  its  last  retreat,  if  without  this 


AND   UPRIGHTNESS   IN    MAN.  53 

Christian  principle  of  right,  is  no  safer  than  the  exchange 
or  the  street.  Marriage  loses  its  sacredness,  and  along 
with  its  sanctity  its  joy.  Domestic  life  is  tossed  into  a 
troubled,  angry  strife.  License  and  self-will,  pagan 
deities,  stalk  out  of  their  old  Pantheon,  and  become  the 
household  gods  of  a  degenerate  and  heathenized  Chris- 
tendom. Men  look  at  women  through  a  mist  of  passion, 
and  women  look  at  men  as  rival  claimants  for  privilege 
and  power.  Who  can  marvel  that  the  fountains  of  young 
life  are  poisoned,  and  that  the  foundations  of  social 
honor  are  loose  ?  The  relations  of  man  and  woman  will 
not  grow  healthier — they  will  be  worse  disordered — till 
we  hear  less  about  "  rights,"  and  more  of  what  is  right ; 
less  of  the  clashing  of  their  spheres,  and  more  of  their 
mutual  obligations.  Were  every  "  incompatible  "  hus- 
band and  wife  to  take  at  once  the  simple  spirit  of  duty 
for  their  reconciliation,  resolved  to  do  what  is  nobly  and 
tenderly  right,  in  the  mutual  bond  that  has  bound  them 
divinely  and  indissolubly  together,  a  new  age  would 
begin  in  the  soiled  history  of  American  families,  and 
cleaner  blood  would  run  in  the  veins  of  the  generations 
coming.  We  need  apostolic  households,  no  less  than  an 
apostolic  Church  ;  and  it  is  an  Apostle  who,  when  he  has 
said,  "  Wives  obey  your  husbands,"  says  with  equal 
emphasis,  "  Husbands,  love  your  wives,  and  be  not  bitter 
against  them," — and  what  gentleness  in  his  reason ! — for 
"  The  husband  is  the  head  of  the  wife,  as  Christ  of  the 
Church." 

Begin  with  your  children.  Speak  cheerfully,  but  rev- 
erently and  solemnly,  to  them  of  the  righteousness  of 
God.  Tell  them  He  is  their  Father,  and  tell  them  He 
is  their  Judge.  Show  them  His  face  of  compassion  ; 
show  them  His  Throne  of  retribution.  Teach  them 
that  He  loves  the  good  ;  teach  them  that  He  hates  lying, 


54:  THE    EIGHTEOUSJSTESS    OF    GOD. 

and  lust,  and  all  iniquity,  and  that,  for  His  goodness's 
sake.  He  will  sweep  those  who  do  not  hate  them  finally 
into  tribulation.  Take  care,  yourselves,  to  touch  not 
the  unclean  thing,  so  that  your  counsel  to  your  sons  and 
daughters  be  not  a  mockery.  Shake  off  the  first  dishonest 
penny  from  your  fingers,  as  the  Apostle  shook  the  ven- 
omous viper  into  the  fire.  Stand  in  awe  of  your  con- 
science ;  stand  in  awe  of  the  King  of  kings.  Expect  and 
welcome,  from  the  ministry  of  Christ,  searching  mes- 
sages. Pray  for  prophets  who  will  rebuke  you,  as  their 
ancient  predecessors  did  Israel,  for  robbing  man  by  any 
fraud,  for  robbing  God  by  keeping  back  the  offerings  at 
His  altar  which  He  requires  at  your  hands.  Turn  to  old 
Isaiah,  and  listen  to  the  burden  of  his  advent  vision: 

"Hear,  O  Heaven,  and  give  ear,  O  Earth,  for  the 
Lord  hath  spoken.  I  have  nourished  and  brought  up 
children,  and  they  have  rebelled  against  me.  "Wash  you  ; 
make  you  clean.  Cease  to  do  evil ;  learn  to  do  well. 
Seek  judgment ;  relieve  the  oppressed ;  right  the  father- 
less ;  plead  for  the  widow.  Zion  shall  be  redeemed  with 
judgment,  and  her  converts  with  righteousness.  Say  ye 
to  the  righteous.  It  shall  be  well  with  them,  for  they 
shall  eat  the  fruit  of  their  doings.  "Woe  unto  the 
wicked ;  it  shall  be  ill  with  him,  for  the  reward  of  his 
hand  shall  be  given  him.  The  mouth  of  the  Lord 
hath  spoken  it." 


THE  MAN  CHEIST  JESUS. 

Christmas  Day, 

"And  they  shall  call  His  name  Emmanuel,  which  being  inter- 
preted is,  God  with  us.— /S^.  Matthew  i.  23. 

^  The  form  of  the  sentence  is  prophetic.  The  Evangel- 
ist expressly  quotes  it  from  the  Book  of  prophecy  where 
it  originally  stood.  Isaiah,  sometimes  called  the  evan- 
gelist among  the  prophets,  because  his  mind  was  so 
deeply  acquainted  with  the  spirit  of  Christ,  wrote  it  as  a 
promise  to  his  people.  Through  them  it  was  a  promise 
to  the  world.  Blind  and  lost  humanity  had  gone  wrong, 
groping  and  stumbling  down  the  slope  of  four  thousand 
evil  years.  Had  it  been  only  man  that  was  offended, 
then  some  better  man,  large  of  brain  and  large  of  heart, 
might  have  been  the  mediator.  But  the  Prophet  saw 
deeper  than  that.  With  the  Psalmist,  he  knew  that  the 
human  heart  must  cry  out,  "  Against  Thee,  Thee  only," 
O  my  God^  "  have  I  sinned."  Some  mightier  Saviour 
must  come.  Even  the  Heaven  of  heavens  is  moving  it- 
self in  mercy.  "  Ask  thee  a  sign  of  the  Lord  thy  God ; 
ask  it  either  in  the  depth  or  in  the  height  above.  The 
Lord  himself  shall  give  you  a  sign.  Behold,  a  virgin 
shall  conceive,  and  bear  a  Son."  "  In  the  beginning  was 
the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word 
was  God.  He  was  in  the  world, — that  w^orld  which  was 
made  by  Him, — and  the  world  knew  Him  not."     "  In 


56  THE    MAN    CHEIST  JESUS. 

Him  was  life " ;  original,  absolute,  eternal,  uncreated 
life.  So,  virgin-born,  God  came  in  great  humility  as 
man, — Emmanuel, — and  we,  with  undeserving  eyes,  be- 
held His  glory,  the  glory  as  of  one  only  begotten  of  the 
Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth.  How  have  we  beheld 
Him?  Has  it  been  with  a  joy  like  John's?  Has  it  been 
with  a  faith  like  Mary's  ?  Have  we  knelt,  bringing  our 
offerings  to  Him  with  the  sages,  or  worshipped  Him  in 
simplicity  of  heart,  with  the  shepherds  ? 

Secondly,  the  Mediator  was  to  come  in  the  purity  and 
the  power  of  a  sinless  human  character.  Here,  again, 
notice  how  simple  and  natural  the  prophet's  language  is. 
The  child  to  be  born  "  shall  know  to  refuse  the  evil  and 
choose  the  good."  Heavenly  knowledge !  "  To  depart 
from  evil,  that  is  understanding."  This  Christ  to  come 
shall  be  the  perfect  Man.  In  Him  all  virtues,  all  graces, 
shall  meet.  They  shall  not  only  meet  but  harmonize  in 
Him,  blending  together  into  one  matchless  manhood.  It 
shall  not  be  as  in  all  other  men,  the  grandest  specimens 
of  virtue,  where  some  disproportion  spoils  the  sym- 
metry; excess  or  defect,  one-sidedness  or  limitation, 
clinging  to  the  highest  minds.  But  everything  in  Him 
shall  be  tempered  faultlessly  together :  energy  with  pa- 
tience, dignity  with  tenderness,  forbearance  toward  the 
guilty  with  indignation  at  wrong,  command  with  obe- 
dience, courage  with  humility,  the  fortitude  of  heroes 
and  martyrs  with  the  sensibility  of  woman,  and  the  ripe 
experience  of  saints  with  the  artlessness  of  a  child.  It 
was  "  that  holy  thing "  of  which  the  angel  spoke  so  mys- 
teriously and  awfully  to  Mary,  which  "  should  be  born 
of  her,"  as  "  the  Son  of  God."  He  would  be  the  man 
with  men.  He  would  be  humanity's  one  consummate 
immaculate  example.  He  would  be  the  world's  one 
stainless  human  soul. 


THE    MAN    CHRIST    JESUS.  57 

This  was  the  second  part  of  the  world's  one  real 
want:  First,  Divine  redemption  for  the  sins  that  are 
past.  Secondly,  a  holy  Man.  We,  my  friends,  are  a 
part  of  the  human  world ;  and  you  and  I,  if  we  have  at- 
tained at  all  to  a  spiritual  life,  must  join  in  with  the  cry 
of  this  longing  of  human  hearts  for  a  Christ.  Give  us, 
O  Giver  of  all  good  gifts,  one  Leader  like  ourselves ;  one 
glorious  human  Person  that  we  can  love  immeasurably 
and  forever,  and  the  more  we  love  Him  be  the  more  ex- 
alted ;  one  King  that  our  loyalty  can  cling  to,  without 
abatement  or  misgiving,  till  we  die,  and  then  not  die 
eternally.  Let  Him  be  one  of  us,  that  we  may  be  one  in 
Him.  Let  Him  be  no  strange,  distant  demigod,  belong- 
ing neither  to  heaven  nor  earth,  too  unearthly  for  our 
affections,  and  yet  too  mortal  for  our  worship.  But  let 
Him  be  born  here, — on  this  familiar,  sinful  earth,  which 
feels  human  to  our  human  feet ;  in  some  Bethlehem  vil- 
lage, where  men  and  women  work  and  weep,  and  chil- 
dren play  in  the  streets;  and  if  it  be  in  a  stable-manger, 
so  much  the  better  for  the  encouragement  of  our  faith 
that  He  really  means  to  minister  to  us,  and  to  take  the 
form  of  a  servant,  and  to  put  pride  altogether  away ; — 
though  He  was  rich  with  the  wealth  of  heaven  and  earth 
before,  to  become  poor  for  our  sake.  Let  Him  grow  up 
in  a  carpenter's  family,  that  He  may  make  all  our  com- 
mon labor  sacred,  and  have  a  place  in  every  humble 
house  on  the  globe.  Though  He  is  to  be  the  conqueror 
of  all  nations  and  all  ages,  let  us  see  Him  first  as  a  filial 
boy  at  home,  subject  to  the  order  of  the  house,  obedient 
to  His  mother,  growing  into  His  lordship  over  the 
race  through  these  steps  of  pious  subordination.  Above 
all,  let  Him,  for  our  poor  sinful  nature's  sake, — let  Him 
be  tempted,  like  as  we  are,  that  He  may  know  how  to 
succor  and  pity  and  love  us  who  are  tempted.     Com- 


58  THE    MAN    CHRIST    JESUS. 

plete,  and  spotless,  and  triumphant  in  His  holiness,  let  us 
nevertheless  find  Him  facing  our  adversary, — in  actual 
struggles, — in  the  wilderness,  hungry  for  earthly  bread ; 
on  the  temple-top,  with  the  pride  of  personal  display 
before  Him ;  at  the  mount,  beholding  the  kingdoms  of 
worldly  dominion  lying  helpless  within  the  grasp  of  His 
ambition,  yet  refusing  them.  Alone,  out  among  the 
hills,  when  the  world  of  men  has  misunderstood,  wor- 
ried, rejected  Him,  with  the  night  wind  on  His  heated 
face,  let  us  catch  the  words  of  peaceful  prayer  from  His 
lips.  Though  He  is  to  overcome  death,  passing  through 
it,  and  rising  from  it,  yet,  since  we  all  dread  it,  let  us 
hear  Plim  entreat,  under  its  agony,  "  If  it  be  possible, 
let  this  cup  pass  from  Me."  Let  us  meet  Him  weep- 
ing sometimes  at  the  grave  of  His  friend,  and  by  all  this 
thorough  and  utter  humanity  in  Him,  let  Him  be  to  us 
a  brother,  while  He  is  a  Saviour ;  Mary's  child,  while 
He  reigns  over  the  kingdom  of  D.ivid, — the  Son  of 
Man,  as  He  is  the  Son  of  God, — God  himself,  in  His 
wondrous  way,  with  us.     Emmanuel ! 

When  this  yearning  of  mankind  was  taken  up  into 
the  guidance  and  inspiration  of  God,  it  became  proph- 
ecy. The  voice  became  articulate.  A  "more  sure 
word,"  as  the  Apostle  says,  "  holy  men  of  old  spoke  as 
they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost."  One  of  the 
most  expressive  titles  of  our  Lord  condenses  and  con- 
veys all  this  that  I  have  been  trying  to  say.  He  was  the 
"  Desire  of  all  nations,"  and  accordingly  the  Evangelist, 
in  the  passage  of  the  text,  while  he  records  the  blessed 
nativity  at  Bethlehem,  adds  to  the  narrative,  "  [N'ow  all 
this  was  done,  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken 
of  the  Lord  by  the  prophet."  Some  puzzled  students, 
looking  not  much  below  the  literal  sense  lying  on  the 
surface,  have  wondered  at  this  language,  and  disputed 


THE    MAJ?    CHRIST    JESUS.  59 


about  it.  "  Is  it  credible,"  they  have  asked,  "  that  God 
in  lieaven  should  order  such  grand  transactions  as  make 
up  the  Messiah's  ministry,  merely  for  the  purpose  of 
fulfilling  certain  old  predictions,  written  by  men  ages 
before  ? "  But  there  is  a  profounder  view  of  the  unity 
between  prophets  and  evangelists  than  this.  And 
where  do  we  find  it,  but  in  the  very  significance  and 
strength  of  those  desires  we  have  just  seen  in  the  whole 
mind  and  heart  of  the  nations  of  men,  seeing  them 
there  just  because  we  feel  them  first  in  ourselves;  — 
desires  for  a  Divine  propitiation,  for  a  perfect  Master, 
Leader,  Lord,  to  love,  and  trust,  and  follow, — to  love 
more  than  life,  to  follow  through  all  hurt  and  peril  with 
joy,  to  trust  for  everlasting  salvation  ?  In  order  that 
these  longings  of  the  human  heart, — fed  on  prophecy, 
divinely  instructed,  made  a  preparation  for  (Christ,  gath- 
ered up  and  clothed  in  miraculous  authority  in  great 
illuminated  seers  like  Isaiah  and  Zechariah, — might  be 
fulfilled.  He  was  born,  and  died.  Herein  was  love. 
^Nothing  here  is  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  covenants 
and  revelations  of  Heaven.  It  is  the  answer  of  God's 
eternal  purpose  to  the  cry  of  His  penitent  family,  in  the 
gift  of  the  Emmanuel,  our  Saviour. 

And  now  these  things  that  I  have  been  saying  to  you, 
as  our  Christmas  morning  thought,  are  a  declaration, — 
only  not  in  the  usual  formulas  of  theological  discussion, 
— of  the  one  fact  which  lies  central  and  life-giving,  at 
the  heart  of  all  our  Christian  thoughts  and  hopes.  The 
name  that  the  creeds  and  standards  of  the  Church  have 
always  given  it  is  the  Incarnation, — or  the  doctrine  of 
God  in  Christ,  made  flesh,  and  dwelling  with  us.  Ready 
as  Christians  have  been,  however,  to  give  that  blessed 
truth  this  place  in  words,  there  is  too  much  reason  to 
fear  it  does  not  possess  the  soul  of  Christendom  as  the 


60  THE    MAN    CHEIST    JESUS. 

joyful  conviction  it  ought  to  be,  lightening  all  our  dark- 
ness, scattering  all  our  fear,  sanctifying  all  our  life.  We 
cover  it  up  with  strange  and  gloomy  draperies  of  un- 
real phraseology,  technical  traditions,  or  sectarian  dis- 
putes. It  is  not  blessed  truth  at  all  then,  but  is  robbed  of 
its  blessedness.  Let  it  stand  out  in  its  own  simple,  fresh, 
and  glorious  splendor,  and  what  loveliness  of  moral 
beauty,  what  majesty  of  disinterested  sacrifice,  what 
gladness  of  relief  and  consolation,  what  beam  of  hope  is 
there,  that  does  not  meet  and  mingle  in  its  mercy  ?  In 
the  whole  world  of  realities  there  is  nothing  so  real,  or 
so  comforting  to  us,  as  this.     JSmmanuel ! 

Further,  we  come  short  of  the  full  grandeur  of  the 
Gospel  when  we  take  the  clause,  "  God  with  us,"  as 
signifying  only  one  among  us, — a  Deity  moving  among 
individuals,  outside  of  them  all,  and,  however  friendly 
and  gracious,  still  an  external  Person,  saving  them  only 
by  a  work  wrought  all  above  them.  Christ's  atonement 
is  no  mechanical  device  in  the  Divine  counsels,  brought 
in  at  an  unexpected  emergency  in  the  world's  fortunes, 
paying  the  price  of  men's  sins  in  a  mercantile  equiv- 
alent adjusted  by  contract,  after  which  the  Redeemer 
retires  to  contemplate  His  ransomed  beneficiaries  from 
afar  off.  Oh,  friends  in  Christ,  friends  in  Christ,  we 
have  a  dearer,  warmer,  holier  faith.  When  it  is  said 
that,  in  Emmanuel^  God  is  with  us,  it  is  meant  that  His 
very  nature  is  wrought  into  our  nature,  if  in  faith  and 
baptism  we  receive  Him,  and  ours  into  His.  In  the 
true  Incarnation  all  humanity  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  taken 
up  into  the  embrace  of  God.  Henceforth  all  the  world 
is  saved,  and  no  soul  born  of  woman,— no  man,  no  child, 
— needs  to  be  an  alien  or  outcast  from  the  Father's  House. 
It  only  needs  that  the  energetic  command  be  heeded, — 
"  Repent  and  be  baptized ;  come  in  faith ;  accept  your 


THE    MAN    CHRIST    JESUS.  61 

lieritage;  be  born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit;  awake  to 
the  spiritual  privileges  and  holy  living  of  the  family 
order  and  affection  around  you."  Then  new  beauty  will 
robe  the  earth ;  new  joy  will  encompass  it  like  an  at- 
mosphere !  IS'ow  we  have  a  meaning  for  the  angels' 
song, — "  Glad  tidings  of  great  joy  to  all  people  "  ;  "  Glory 
to  God  in  the  highest ;  on  earth  peace ;  good-will  to 
men."  Old  things  are -passed  away;  behold  all  things 
are  become  new. 

It  is  a  remark  of  the  historian  Guizot,  and  it  doubt- 
less contains  a  sound  philosophy,  for  all  history  confirms 
it,  that  "  there  never  can  be  a  great  moral  revolution 
without  its  being  concentrated  in  some  great  personage." 
Doubtless,  loyalty,  everywhere,  must  have  a  leader. 
But  the  practical  assurance  which  this  Feast  of  the 
]N"ativity  repeats  to  us  reaches  far  beyond  that,  and 
comes  home  to  the  heart's  experience  of  those  that  are 
themselves  sore  let  and  hindered  in  running  the  race 
that  is  set  before  them.  Christ  not  merely  takes  His 
place  in  history;  but  all  history  takes  place  in  Him. 
He  is  large  enough,  comprehensive  enough,  compassion- 
ate enough,  to  take  in  all  the  experience,  the  souls,  the 
lives,  the  burdens,  the  sorrows,  of  all  nations  and  all 
ages.  See  at  once  what  a  higher  and  holier  character 
this  truth  puts  on  the  much-abused  dogma  of  the  dignity 
of  human  nature.  Human  nature  without  the  incarna- 
tion is  the  least  dignified  of  all  things :  it  is  weak,  incon- 
stant, vulgar,  guilty,  lost.  As  for  anything  it  is  in  itself, 
only  conceit  and  vanity  could  call  it  noble,  and  hence  it 
is  that  the  doctrine  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  held 
without  the  Church-truth  of  Christ's  divinity  and  incar- 
nation, has  proved  but  a  thin  and  feeble  force  to  convert 
mankind,  to  raise  society,  or  to  send  out  missions  to  the 
heathen.     Its  fatal  infirmity,  in  the  lack  of  this  funda- 


K)j3  the    man    CHRIST    JESUS. 

mental  and  vitalizing  fact  of  the  Gospels,  has  emptied 
even  its  honest  and  eloquent  advocates  of  spiritual  power. 
But  let  it  be  seen  that  human  nature  is  uplifted  and 
ennobled  in  the  Divine  humanity  of  Christ,  Son  of  Man 
and  Son  of  God,  and  forthwith  it  wears  a  grandeur  as  if 
the  majestic  bearing  and  outlines  of  the  Divine  Man 
were  visibly  reflected  upon  it.  Education  is  a  new 
thing  now :  it  is  a  sacred  training  in  a  sacred  school. 
Social  reform  is  a  new  thing :  for  it  is  no  visionary 
scheme  of  an  indefinite  "  progress,"  all  whose  forces  are 
secular,  and  whose  civilization  is  unconsecrated,  never 
on  its  knees,  and  never  at  sacraments ;  but  it  is  a  restor- 
ation of  this  divine  image  in  man.  Philanthropy  is  a 
new  thing :  no  longer  bitter,  headstrong,  factious ;  but 
reverential,  genial,  generous,  and  orderly.  Christ's 
human  nature  is  the  nature  of  all  classes  and  conditions 
of  men, — the  slave's  nature,  the  poor  man's  nature,  the 
pagan's  nature;  and  when  He  died,  with  the  cruci- 
fixion and  anguish  of  that  nature,  on  the  cross,  it  w^as 
that  all  these  might  be  lifted  to  the  glory  of  spiritual 
liberty  and  light,  and  their  sins  be  blotted  out.  Here 
centre  and  here  rest  all  solid  hopes  of  a  bright  and 
happy  future  for  mankind ;  not  in  economic  schemes, 
or  bills  of  rights,  or  civil  constitutions,  or  policies  of  a 
godless  self-elevation  and  self-reliance.  They  rest  in 
the  reverent  spirit  of  the  Church  of  God,  with  her  hope- 
ful and  all-animating  certainty  of  an  incarnate  Lord,  a 
God  with  us,  who  is  the  Son  of  Man :  Eiamcmuel, 

Then,  too,  it  will  begin  to  appear  what  Christ's  own 
people  may  be,  acknowledging  their  membership,  con- 
firmed and  alive  in  His  body.  Take  the  Holy  Scriptures 
and  see  how  often  Christ  is  there  spoken  of  as  an  indwell- 
ing Christ,  present  now,  formed  within,  living  in  the 
believer  and  the  believer  in  Him,  the  very  Life  of  life. 


THE     MAN     CHKIST    JESUS.  DO 

Take  our  service  of  the  Holy  Communion  of  His  body 
and  blood ;  study  its  sublime  scriptural  language ;  and 
you  find  how  intimate  and  inward  is  this  membership  of 
the  disciple  and  communicant  with  his  Lord  by  faith. 
Light  even  breaks  in  on  that  almost  inexplicable  and 
incredible  saying  of  St.  Peter,  that  by  the  "  exceeding 
great  and  precious  promises  "  of  the  Word  made  flesh, 
men  may  be  "  partakers  of  the  Divine  nature,  escaping 
the  corruption  that  is  in  the  world  through  lust."  Kea- 
son,  blind  and  anxious,  may  still  have  its  difiiculties,  and 
toil  and  grind  in  its  prison-house,  "  bound  in  affliction  and 
iron  " ;  but  Faith  marches  right  over  them  as  if  they 
were  not ;  nay,  she  takes  wings  and  leaves  them  out  of 
her  sight.  What  we  want,  that  our  Gospel  gives.  While 
Reason  is  puzzling  herself  about  the  mystery.  Faith  is 
turning  it  into  her  daily  bread,  and  feeding  on  it  thank- 
fully in  her  heart  of  hearts.  While  Heason  is  applying 
the  tests  of  her  earthly  chemistry,  threatening  to  dis- 
solve the  very  cross  of  Calvary  in  her  crucibles.  Faith 
has  quietly  set  the  holy  doctrine  to  the  music  of  her  joy, 
and  is  singing  it  as  her  hymn  of  Benedictus^  or  Magnifi- 
cat, in  unquestioning  peace.  The  doctrine  may  crucify 
the  proud,  but  it  crowns  the  meek  with  salvation. 

We  cannot  separate,  then,  fellow  Christians,  the  two 
main  grounds  of  our  Christian  rejoicing  this  day.  If 
reconciliation  is  by  the  Lord's  sacrifice,  so  is  daily  right- 
eousness and  sanctification  by  His  life.  There  could  be 
no  Mediator  without  both ;  and  by  both  we  are  saved. 
If,  "  being  justified  by  faith,  we  have  peace  with  God 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  so  in  the  blessed 
remembrance  of  the  Divine  humanity  of  that  unseen 
Friend  we  shall  find  a  power  to  raise  us,  day  by  day, 
above  the  weakness,  the  sufiering,  and  the  sinfulness  of 
the  mortal  flesh.     Perhaps  some  of  us  will  find  there 


64  THE    MAN     CHKIST    JESUS. 

what  will  even  comfort  us  more  than  the  bare  thought 
of  an  "escape  from  the  wrath  to  come,"  viz.,  a  power  to 
help  us  mightily  in  this  mysterious  and  constant  strife  of 
the  flesh  with  the  spirit.  We  know  now  that  the  world 
of  matter  and  the  body  is  under  no  malignant  deity  or 
demon  at  war  with  God ;  but  to  the  believer  even  the 
outer  tabernacle  is  sanctified  by  Him  who  took  it  upon 
Him ;  the  flesh,  too,  is  redeemed ;  the  "  creature  itself 
shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into 
the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God  "  ;  and,  while 
"  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain 
together,"  we  wait  in  Christ  who  hath  taken  our  flesh 
"  for  the  redemption  and  resurrection  of  our  body," 
which  is  the  living  image  and  figure  of  His  Church. 

Honor  and  praise,  then,  in  the  Church,  with  Christ- 
mas anthems,  with  the  shepherds,  and  the  sages,  and  the 
virgin-mother,  and  the  heavenly  host,  to  our  Emmanuel, 
as  the  Son  of  Man !  As  man  He  was  born.  As  man 
He  was  a  servant,  was  homeless,  was  weary,  was  an  hun- 
gered, and  wept.  As  man  He  was  tempted,  and  as  man 
He  was  without  sin.  As  man  He  endured  contradiction, 
reviling,  insult,  cruelty,  and  yet  said,  "  Daughters  of 
Jerusalem,  weep  not  for  Me,  but  weep  for  yourselves 
and  for  your  children."  As  man  He  was  crucified,  dead, 
and  buried.  As  man  He  rose  again,  ascended,  and  reigns. 
As  man  He  shall  come  again,  to  divide,  and  to  judge, 
and  to  reign  ;  for  "  therefore  is  all  judgment  committed 
unto  Him,  because  He  is  the  Son  of  Man." 

So  well-grounded  is  the  universal  joy  of  this  day's 
feast.  The  blessing  belonging  to  it  falls  not  on  one 
day,  or  on  a  few  rare  and  separated  spots.  Its  light 
shines  in  through  all  the  frost  and  fruitage  of  the  year. 
When  the  star  in  the  east  came  and  stood  over  where 
the  young  child  was,  and  looked  in  on  the  Bethlehem 


THE    MAN     CHRIST    JESUS.  66 

stable,  it  saw  the  beginDing  of  a  reconciliation  which 
should  bring  rest  to  the  world.  When  the  song  of  the 
angels  startled  the  shepherds,  keeping  watch  over  their 
flocks  by  night,  it  was  the  first  strain  of  a  harmony  in 
which  we  bear  our  unworthy  part  this  morning,  to  sound 
on  till  it  is  completed,  where  it  was  begun, — in  heaven. 
The  manger  is  a  cradle  for  all  the  anxieties  and  sorrows 
and  fears  of  our  hearts,  where  they  may  sleep  in  child- 
like peace.  The  human  nativity  of  Jesus  is  the  Divine 
birthday  and  new  creation  of  the  soul. 


FAITH  OUTLIYIKG  ITS  SPECIAL  OCCASIONS. 
Sunday  after  Christmas, 

"And  it  came  to  pass,  as  the  angels  were  gone  away  from  them 
into  Heaven,  the  shepherds  said  one  to  another,  Let  us  now  go  even 
unto  Bethlehem,  and  see  this  thing  which  is  come  to  pass,  which  the 
Lord  hath  made  known  unto  us." — St.  LuTce  ii.  15. 

The  trial  of  men's  faith  comes  after  God's  awakening 
angels  have  gone  away. 

His  angels  are  His  messengers.  In  so  sublime  a  cere- 
monial as  the  visible  ushering  into  the  world  of  the  Person 
of  its  Lord  they  might  well  come  as  winged  forms  in  the 
sky,  heavenly  light  clothing  them,  singing  a  super- 
natural hymn :  the  whole  appearance  a  court  befitting 
the  glory  of  the  King.  When  God  bringeth  His  only 
begotten  Son  into  the  world,  He  "  maketh  His  angels 
spirits,  and  His  ministers  a  flame  of  fire."  We  call  it 
supernatural,  and  it  is ;  yet  what  could  be  more  natural 
to  Him  than  that,  when  the  eternal  Son,  begotten  of  His 
Father  before  all  worlds,  becomes  a  man, — because  men 
could  not  be  thoroughly  and  inwardly  saved  but  by  the 
sacrifice  and  sympathy  of  a  Saviour  entering  into  the 
poverty  and  suffering  of  their  mortal  estate, — those  inter- 
mediate orders  of  life  which  stand  between  Him  and  us 
should  attend  His  advent,  and  announce  the  transcen- 
dent blessing  to  the  world  ?  It  was  too  high  a  mystery 
to  be  heralded,  even  in  music,  from  the  stained  and  sin- 
ning lips  of  men. 


FAITH   OUTLIVING   ITS    SPECIAL   OCCASIONS.  67 

To  US  God's  favoring  messengers  are  stripped  of  their 
miraculous  raiment.  They  take  the  shape  of  merciful 
providences  to  relieve  and  comfort  us,  of  Christian 
ordinances  to  strengthen  us,  festivals  to  reawaken  our 
thanksgiving,  and  human  hearts  to  enrich  the  poverty 
of  ours  with  their  affection.  The  Faith  that  was  born 
at  Bethlehem  is  ages  old ;  its  outer  benefits  as  well  as 
its  forms  are  familiar.  "While  they  are  present  to  the 
senses  in  the  vividness  of  some  special  impression  it  is 
not  very  difficult  probably  for  our  feelings  to  move  in 
grateful  answer  to  their  ministrations.  On  the  Mount  of 
Transfiguration  the  three  favored  disciples  cried,  "Let 
us  build  tabernacles  and  abide  here  "  ;  yet  scarcely  had 
they  stepped  down  from  the  splendors  of  Tabor  when 
they  began  disputing  which  follower  of  the  poor  stable- 
born  and  homeless  Redeemer  should  be  greatest.  In  the 
fresh  mercy  of  some  gracious  deliverance,  from  sadness  or 
pain  or  accident  or  threatened  sorrow,  men  cast  their 
thank-offering  into  the  treasury  of  the  Church,  and 
wonder  that  they  should  ever  be  forgetful  of  God's  care. 
In  th8  stillness  of  a  sanctuary,  when  all  the  harmonies 
of  holy  times  and  places  seem  to  shut  out  temptation, 
to  set  open  the  windows  of  heaven,  and  fill  the  uplifted 
spirit  with  hearty  praise,  men  say,  "  Would  to  God  all 
days  and  places  were  like  this ;  for  then  faith,  and  zeal, 
and  charity  never  would  grow  cold ! "  In  the  warmth 
of  the  feast  it  is  easy  to  be  glad.  And  even  when  the 
shadow  moves  into  the  house, — for  that  shadow  too  is 
one  of  God's  angels, — the  whole  family,  bending  with 
prayers  and  whispers  above  one  fevered,  wasting  child, 
find  it  easy  to  turn  to  the  Saviour,  and  impossible  not 
to  pray.  But  these  hours  pass  by.  The  angels  are  gone 
away  into  heaven.  The  festive  lights  are  put  out;  the 
temple-doors  are  shut ;  the  Winter  snow  lies  white  and 


b»  FAITH    OUTLIVING    ITS    SPECIAL   OCCASIONS. 

smooth  on  tlie  little  grave  in  the  burial-ground.  The 
world  comes  crowding,  beseeching,  flattering,  threaten- 
ing, almost  forcing  its  way  back,  with  its  noise  and  its 
guilt,  into  the  unguarded  and  yielding  heart.  Then 
comes  the  test  of  the  reality,  the  sincerity,  the  power, 
of  your  Christian  principles. 

When  the  song  ceased,  the  first  Christmas  eve,  and 
the  bright  host  vanished  from  the  sky,  the  shepherds 
did  not  fall  asleep  again,  and  so  have  only  a  dream  to 
tell  the  next  morning.  They  verified  the  vision,  like 
earnest  and  constant  men.  They  stayed  a  while,  and 
watched,  and  resolved :  "  Let  us  now  go  even  unto  Beth- 
lehem, and  see  this  thing  which  is  come  to  pass,  which 
the  Lord  hath  made  known  to  us." 

Secondly  :  Such  willingness  to  watch  and  seek  com- 
monly leads,  as  it  does  here,  to  an  equal  readiness  to 
heliem  when  the  promise  is  fulfilled,  and  they  that  have 
sought  Christ  find  Him.  It  will  be  easy  to  imagine  in 
them — and  all  the  easier  because  there  are  so  many  peo- 
ple close  at  hand  that  are  examples  of  it, — a  state  of  mind 
exactly  opposite  to  this  simple,  believing,  and  confiding 
one  in  the  shepherds.  They  might  have  said, — and  if 
they  had  been  modern  philosophers,  conceited  critics,  or 
ambitious  naturalists,  they  would  have  been  very  sure  to 
say, — to  each  other,  "  Beware  how  you  believe :  these,  to 
be  sure,  are  extraordinary  phenomena;  they  look  very 
much  as  miracles  are  said  to  look, —  brilliant  figures 
plainly  seen  by  many  witnesses,  nay,  by  our  own  eyes, 
and  articulate  melodies  from  their  tongues! — but  pos- 
sibly electricity,  meteorology,  optics,  or  acoustics  may 
explain  them  all ; — light  or  sound."  And  if  the  legiti- 
mate sciences  fail,  they  can  at  least  fall  back  on  necromancy 
and  witchcraft, — the  retributive  "  spiritualism  "  which 
often  persuades  those  who  would  not  believe  a  miracle  of 


FAITH    OUTLIVING   ITS    SPECIAL    OCCASIONS.  69 

truth  to  believe  the  miracle  of  a  lie.  Anything  but 
simple,  straight-forward  Christian  faith,  of  Gospel  and 
Church  together !  They  say,  "  We  will  look  into  our 
books.  It  is  extremely  unlikely  that  nature  would  inter- 
rupt her  order,  or  let  in  new  light  by  a  new  channel. 
Let  us  take  care  not  to  be  ridiculed  for  believing  too 
much."  And  so,  while  they  turn  downward  from  God  to 
themselves,  these  Scribes  of  outward  knowledge  and 
Pharisees  of  the  law  of  nature,  as  fast  bound  against  all 
the  living  power  of  truth  and  the  liberty  in  Christ  as 
ever  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  of  the  letter  and  law 
of  Judaism  were,  freeze  in  unbelief.  Glories  of  heaven 
and  earth,  grander  than  telescopes  ever  pierced  among 
the  stars,  or  hammers  ever  uncovered  in  the  rocks, 
pass  by,  and  there  is  no  vision  to  behold  them.  Quick 
minds,  but  dull  affections!  Full  understandings  and 
empty  hearts !  Spiritual  things  not  seen  for  want  of 
spiritual  senses !  "  O  fools  and  slow  of  heart  to  believe  " 
all  that  God's  prophets,  God's  angels,  God's  Scriptures 
have  spoken ! 

Around  the  person  of  Jesus  in  the  flesh,  when  the 
Divine  voice  was  ringing  out  of  Heaven  above  Him, 
some  said  that  it  thundered,  others  that  an  angel  spoke  to 
Him.  These  shepherds  were  wiser  than  the  sages.  God 
knew  whom  he  was  choosing  when  he  opened  Heaven 
on  those  clear-hearted  keepers  of  simple  flocks.  They 
discredited  neither  messenger  nor  message, — as  true  and 
humble-minded  disciples  reject  neither  Christ  nor  His 
Church,  the  Bridegroom  nor  the  Bride.  They  said,  not 
as  our  own  doubters  say,  "  Let  us  go  somewhere  and  see 
whether  this  thing  is  come  to  pass  or  not "  ;  but,  "  Let 
us  go  and  see  this  thing  which  is  come  to  pass,  which  the 
Lord  hath  made  known  to  us."  Everywhere  you  see 
men  ready  to  hww,  ready  to  reason,  ready  to  speculate, 


TO  FAITH    OUTLIVING   ITS    SPECIAL    OCCASIONS. 

ready  to  stand  by  their  party  and  their  prejudice,  ready  to 
dogmatize  and  denounce  those  that  differ,  ready  to  receive 
this  world's  gifts.  But  when  that  divinest  gift  of  all 
comes, — ^pardon  and  eternal  life;  purity  and  peace; 
Emmanuel  born  in  a  manger ;  a  kingdom  coming  not 
with  observation ;  the  gift  of  Christ ;  a  Life  that  is  within 
life  and  beyond  life,  which  can  come  only  by  believing ; 
are  they  ready  ?  Not  till  they  are  will  Christmas  Day 
be  really  honored,  or  Jesus  really  come  within  us  in 
power. 

Thirdly :  When  Faith  is  prompt,  honest,  and  manly, 
like  this,  it  comes  out  as  it  does  in  these  brave  men,  to 
an  open  confession.  The  shepherds  said  what  they  said 
frankly,  "  one  to  another ^^'^  and  with  one  consent.  It  was 
a  confession  of  Faith  as  much  as  the  Creed  we  have  said 
this  morning ;  and,  like  that,  its  substance  was  not  an 
opinionof  men,  but  a  Divine  Fact  which  had  taken  place. 
So  they  did  not  hide  their  purposes,  or  play  fast  and 
loose  with  their  convictions.  They  did  not  arise  and  go, 
one  by  one,  in  byways  of  concealment,  as  if  they  were 
ashamed  of  their  errand,  or  were  going  only  on  guesses 
instead  of  certainties ;  they  looked  each  other  in  the 
face,  as  men  do  who  act  upon  realities,  and  know  what 
they  believe,  and  expect  the  same  good  faith  in  their  fel- 
lows. They  spoke  out  their  belief.  They  set  up  their 
banner.  They  came  forth  from  among  the  unbelieving. 
They  enrolled  themselves  under  their  Leader.  "Would 
all  the  men  who  actually  believe  with  them,  and  mean 
not  to  dishonor  their  Master,  but  are  kept  back  by  false 
teaching,  unfounded  fears,  and  scruples  that  no  evangelic 
promise  justifies,  only  come  with  them, — there  would  be 
such  a  rallying  of  workmen  under  the  cross  to-day  as 
would  make  it  almost  a  new  nativity,  such  a  feast  as  the 
Church  has  scarcely  kept  since  Pentecost;  enough  to 


FAITH    OUTLIVING    ITS    SPECIAL    OCCASIONS.  71 

make  tlie  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth  sing  "  Glory 
to  God  in  the  highest,"  with  united  acclamation. 

But  after  all  these, — after  the  constancy  which  outlives 
the  visit  of  the  special  privilege,  after  the  willing  Faith 
that  accepts  without  question  the  offered  Saviour,  and 
after  the  frank  and  fearless  confession  of  His  name  before 
men,  comes  one  sharp  criterion  more.  "Will  those  men 
who  have  resolved  to  go  to  Bethlehem  and  see,  really 
arise  and  go?  Many  a  Christian  life  falters  and  fails  in 
every  congregation  between  these  two.  "Will  resolve 
pass  on  into  action,  and  a  good  faith  confirm  and 
demonstrate  itself  in  good  works  ?  Yes,  "  they  came  with 
haste,  and  found  Mary  and  Joseph,  and  the  Babe  lying 
in  a  manger.  And  when  they  had  seen  it,  they  made 
Icnown  abroad  the  saying  which  was  told  them  concerning 
the  Child." 

So  complete  are  the  intimations  of  Christian  doctrine 
in  this  story  of  the  shepherds.  It  ends  where  every 
Christian  life  must  be  lived,  in  hearty  service  to  Christ 
and  the  preaching  of  His  truth.  Visions  are  transient ; 
the  festival  is  but  for  a  day ;  the  angels  go  away  into 
heaven.  But  the  indwelling  Christ  abides.  Everyday^ 
amidst  ignorance,  and  wrong,  and  difficulty.  His  will 
is  to  be  done.  For  us  all,  the  true  trial  of  our  faith 
is  in  the  constancy  which  clings  to  the  promise  of  His 
"Word,  and  the  diligence  which  keeps  its  vows,  and  bears 
His  cross. 

We  have  now  celebrated  the  birthday  not  only  of 
Christ,  but  of  Christendom.  Men  point  sincerely 
enough  to  its  vast  fields,  and  its  centuries  of  blessing, 
and  call  on  their  fellow-men  to  receive  a  religion  which 
yields  such  fruit.  But  in  that  way  souls  are  seldom 
gained  to  a  living  trust,  such  as  either  satisfies  or  sancti- 
fies the  heart.    "We  must  still  return  to  that  old  and 


72  FAITH   OUTLIVING  ITS   SPECIAL   OCCASIONS. 

inspired  definition:  "ISTow  faith  is  the  substance  of 
things  hoped  for ;  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen."  It 
is  not  by  looking  at  what  has  been  in  the  world  of  the 
past,  it  is  by  feeling  the  wants  of  the  sinful  world  within, 
and  by  the  preparation  for  the  sinless  world  to  come, 
that  we  seek  and  find  our  Lord.  Blessed  are  they  that 
so  hunger  and  thirst,  for  they  shall  be  filled !  and  that  so 
seek,  for  they  shall  find ! 


NEW  AND  OLD. 

BEGINNING    OF    THE    YEAE. 

Second  Sunday  after  Christmas. 

"  Things  new  and  old." —  Matthew  xiii.  52. 

Into  these  two  kinds  our  Saviour  sorts  the  materials 
of  wise  instruction.  The  doctrines,  the  spiritual  forces, 
the  ways  of  interesting,  influencing,  and  moulding  men 
for  a  true  service  in  the  Christian  life,  are  of  these 
two  classes, — partly  new  and  partly  old.  This  fact  is  at 
once  an  explanation  of  His  own  method  of  teaching, 
and  a  direction  to  His  disciples  how  they  should  proceed 
to  build  up  the  Church,  or  to  convert  and  to  sanctify 
any  individual  heart. 

The  great  Teacher  had  Himself  just  spoken  to  the 
multitude  gathered  within  the  reach  of  His  voice 
seven  striking  parables.  Four  of  them, — the  parables 
of  the  Sower,  the  Tares  growing  with  the  wheat,  the 
Mustard-seed  becoming  a  tree,  and  of  the  Leaven  pene- 
trating through  the  woman's  measures  of  wheat, — were 
doubtless  delivered  from  a  fishing- vessel  anchored  by  the 
shore  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  to  a  multitude  of  people 
listening  on  the  banks.  The  other  three, — those  of  the 
Treasure  hidden  in  the  field,  of  the  Merchant  seeking 
goodly  pearls,  and  of  the  Draw-net  which  gathers  in 
its  meshes  of  every  kind, — were  heard  afterward  by 


74  NEW   AND    OLD. 

a  smaller  group,  collected  in  a  dwelling-house  that  He 
had  entered,  not  far  from  the  sea-side.  All  the  subjects, 
you  notice,  are  taken  from  the  agricultural,  commercial, 
maritime,  or  domestic  pursuits  of  the  people  He  was 
instructing.  Yet  there  was  such  novelty  in  the  use 
made  of  them,  such  unexpected  arrangement,  coloring, 
and  application  of  these  "old"  daily  doings,  that  they 
were  at  once  transfigured  before  the  people  into  a  fas- 
cinating glory ;  they  listened  under  the  spell  of  an  in- 
describable charm;  it  all  seemed  "new,"  as  if  the 
things  spoken  of  were  just  created,  and  had  the  dew  of 
the  morning  on  them.  So  the  touch  of  true  genius,  in 
a  painting,  is  never  so  plain  as  where  the  figures  and 
objects  represented  are  common,  yet  the  whole  effect  is 
original  as  a  creation.  "  Things  new  and  old  "  together 
make  up  the  mystery  and  the  beauty  of  the  parable  and 
the  picture.  But  more  than  this, — in  what  the  parables 
taught,  or  the  hidden  meaning  that  Christ  conveyed 
through  them,  there  was  the  same  mixture  of  the  two 
elements.  As  they  hearkened  to  the  Lord  from  heaven 
these  Galilean  peasants  and  fishermen  found  something 
that  was  new,  and  something  that  was  old.  Duties  were 
declared,  principles  were  announced,  springs  of  human 
feeling  and  action  were  touched,  which  their  religious 
education  and  the  light  of  their  consciences  had  made 
as  familiar  to  them  as  the  slopes  of  the  hills  about  the 
lake,  the  curves  of  the  shore,  or  the  trees  along  the 
street,  under  the  common  sunshine,  where  they  plied 
their  daily  calling.  This  was  "old,"  but  this  was  not  all. 
As  the  heavenly  words  came  from  the  lips  of  this  "  Son 
of  Man,"  knowing  not  only  all  that  is  in  man  but  the 
secrets  in  the  bosom  of  God,  they  caught  glimpses  of 
something  "  new,"  and  as  grand  as  it  was  new.  Yery 
faint  and  inadequate  these  glimpses  were,  at  first.    But 


NEW   AND    OLD.  75 

the  patient  Master  knew  the  work  He  had  to  do,  and 
led  their  dull  intellects  along  through  this  simple  path 
of  parable,  giving  them  what  they  were  able  to  bear, 
— tempered  beams  for  their  weak  eyes.  What  He  was 
seeking  to  unfold  to  them  was  nothing  less  than  the 
nature  of  that,  everlasting  and  universal  kingdom  of 
God,  which  embraces  all  other  truth,  transcends  all  mor- 
tal understanding,  and  provides  redemption  for  all  the 
nations  of  our  race,  and  yet  sets  up  its  true  throne  in 
the  unlettered  heart  of  a  regenerated  child  or  a  penitent 
slave.  Holding  fast  all  that  was  good  in  the  "old"  re- 
ligion of  conscience  and  Law  He  was  bringing  forth  to 
them  the  "  newness  "  of  His  Gospel. 

"Then  said  He  unto  them.  Every  Scribe  which  is 
instructed  unto  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a 
man  which  is  an  householder,  which  bringeth  forth  out  of 
his  treasure  things  new  and  old."  Perhaps,  while  He 
was  speaking,  the  table  in  the  house  where  He  was  had 
been  hospitably  spread  for  this  welcome  and  beloved 
Friend,  like  that  of  the  lover  in  the  Song  of  Solomon  who 
sings,  "  At  our  gates  are  all  manner  of  fruits,  new  and 
old^  which  I  have  laid  up  for  thee,  O  my  beloved  "  ; — 
and  thus  Jesus  frames  another  allegory  from  the  ready 
meal ;  — "  so  thoroughly,"  says  Stier,  "  has  He  got  into  the 
taste  for  parables,  that  the  festive  board  becomes  a  sym- 
bol of  the  nourishment  of  His  Bread  of  Life."  Neander, 
on  the  other  hand,  supposes  the  "treasure"  to  be  the 
jewels  which  Eastern  hosts  sometimes  display  to  their 
guests, — "  old  "  heirlooms  to  recall  the  past,  and  "new" 
gems  to  signify  present  prosperity  or  friendship,  both 
alike  precious. 

We  shall  find  that  the  principle  the  Saviour  announces 
here  is  too  broad  to  be  confined  to  any  one  profession, 
even  the  most  sacred.     It  appears  in  the  whole  provi- 


ib  NEW   AND    OLD. 

dential  disposition  of  our  lives,  and  impresses  a  particular 
lesson  as  we  pass,  under  Christ  our  Leader,  from  the 
things  of  the  old  year  to  the  things  of  the  new. 

Take  notice,  first,  with  what  wonderful  beneficence,  in 
the  mere  outward  scenery  of  our  mortal  life,  God  has 
joined  these  two  elements, — the  new  and  the  old.  A 
great  deal  that  we  hear,  see,  and  experience  every  day 
is  so  familiar  that  it  excites  no  surprise,  and  so  fixed  that 
we  come  to  rely  on  its  continuance ;  but  intermixed  with 
this  there  is  a  great  deal  besides  in  every  day  that  we 
never  saw,  or  heard,  or  felt  before,  which  keeps  up  a 
perpetual  entertainment.  The  "  old  "  supplies  a  foothold 
to  assure  us,  props  to  lean  upon,  a  sense  of  stability  to 
rest  our  groping  and  unsettled  faculties,  giving  to  the 
world  about  us  something  of  the  feeling  of  a  home. 
The  "new"  stimulates  those  faculties,  wakes  up  our 
dulness,  and  prevents  us  from  sinking  down  into  a 
stupid,  careless  monotony  of  mechanical  routine.  Every 
morning  opens  upon  us  with  the  same  well-known  ele- 
ments of  earth  and  water,  air  and  sky.  But  when  some 
subtle  change  in  the  season,  the  temperature,  or  the 
light,  puts  a  new  expression  on  the  earth's  face,  shifts  the 
scenes  in  the  sky,  scatters  sunshine  and  shadow  with  an 
original  pencilling,  we  seem  to  wake  into  a  day  that 
never  had  its  exact  likeness  in  any  day  that  went  before, 
and  yet  it  is  a  day  in  the  same  old  world.  Were  every- 
thing new,  we  should  be  strangers  in  a  homeless  dance 
of  accidents,  desultory,  frivolous,  careless,  without  concen- 
tration of  purpose,  or  continuity  of  affection,  or  labor. 
Were  everything  old,  we  should  rust  and  harden  in  life- 
less repetitions.  So  God  balances  our  being  mercifully 
between  uniformity  and  variety,  between  fixedness  and 
alteration,  between  habit  and  experiment,  between 
memory  and  hope,  between   endearments   and    friend- 


NEW   AND    OLD.  T7 

ships  which  grow  ripe  and  mellow  with  time  on  the  one 
hand,  and,  on  the  other,  blessings,  efforts,  enterprises, 
and  discoveries  which,  as  it  is  written,  are  a  part  of  the 
Creator's  compassions,  "]^ew  every  morning  and  fresh 
every  evening."  One  great  part  of  what  makes  life 
precious  and  sweet  we  bear  on  with  us  in  our  arms  and 
hearts  through  all  the  changes ;  the  other  part  is  like 
the  unexpected  openings  in  the  winding  road  of  a  trav- 
eller, teaching  us  that  the  Maker's  world  is  larger  than 
we  thought,  and  that  there  are  not  only  many  mansions  in 
our  Father's  house,  but  endless  opportunities  for  gaining 
knowledge  and  being  useful  in  all  these  earthly  fields, 
planted  and  recovered  by  His  Son. 

Enter  next  a  sphere  which  lies  closer  to  the  seats  of 
religious  character.  All  the  advances  that  are  made 
in  human  society  toward  the  practical  realization  of  the 
great  Christian  ideas  of  justice,  order,  liberty,  and  love, 
are  carried  forward  by  the  providential  balance  and  in- 
terworking  of  these  two  principles, — the  preservation 
of  the  old,  and  the  introduction  of  the  new.  Each  gen- 
eration is  meant  to  hand  down  something  to  its  suc- 
cessor, in  experience,  in  wisdom,  in  a  funded  stock  of 
valuable  traditional  opinions  and  usages.  So  is  each 
generation  meant  to  find  out  something  new,  by  study 
and  endeavor,  and  to  add  the  result  to  that  funded  cap- 
ital, dropping  off  and  pushing  aside  what  it  finds  to  be 
false  or  wrong.  It  is  very  rare  that  there  is  an  institu- 
tion, or  custom,  or  doctrine,  gaining  the  consent  of  a 
considerable  number  of  good  men,  and  holding  its  place 
a  long  time,  which  is  so  utterly  bad  that  it  requires  to 
be  completely  blotted  out, — and  even  when  that  is  the 
case,  we  still  hold  on  upon  the  past  by  some  better  bond 
not  to  be  dissolved.  Our  roots  to-day  all  lie  back  in 
the   soil   of  centuries   gone  by,  and   we  grow  out  of 


78  NEW   AND    OLD. 

that, — tlie  old.  But  there  were  errors  and  evils  growing 
there  that  must  have  the  axe  laid  at  their  root,  to  make 
room  for  better  and  nobler  forms  of  life, — the  new 
John  Baptist  comes  heralding  the  Christ.  Truth  itself, 
speaking  strictly,  is  always  old, — eternal  as  God  is. 
But  as  we  are  constantly  walking  around  it,  catching 
different  aspects  of  it,  and  perhaps  hewing  away  the 
disfigurements  that  mistaken  men  before  us  have  plas- 
tered upon  that  majestic  and  beautiful  countenance,  its 
features  seeiYh  to  be  new.  And  here  comes  the  distinc- 
tion between  true  and  false  reformers,  in  their  opposite 
extremes.  Destructionists  that  are  over-bold  would  cut 
the  present  clean  off  from  the  past,  for  the  sake  of  hav- 
ing a  future  built  after  their  own  plan, — like  the  Spar- 
tans that  killed  their  old  men  because  they  were  in  the 
way,  making  their  reform  a  beginning  and  a  beginning 
over  and  over  again,  never  bringing  forth  out  of  their 
treasure  "things  old."  Conservatives  that  are  over- 
timid,  on  the  other  hand,  would  never  allow  an  innova- 
tion, lest  it  should  disturb  the  peace;  they  render 
reform  impossible  by  the  fear  of  change,  like  Herod, 
who  slaughtered  the  Holy  Innocents  lest  there  should  be 
a  young  king  among  them  to  dispute  his  throne, — never 
bringing  forth  out  of  their  treasure  "  things  new."  But 
the  wise  Householder  in  Heaven  overrules  both  of  their 
one-sided  follies,  and,  by  opposing  each  with  the  other, 
bears  His  human  family  forward  in  one  unbroken  order 
of  gradual  and  merciful  advancement. 

Pass  to  the  more  sacred  ground  of  God's  special 
revelations  in  the  three  successive  dispensations  through 
which  he  has  guided  His  Church.  First  was  the  Period 
of  Patriarchs,  of  which  we  have  the  description  and 
history  in  the  Book  of  Genesis.  It  was  adapted  to  the 
childhood  of  the  race ;  but  when  the  time  came  for  it  to 


NEW   AND    OLD.  79 

give  place  to  a  written  Law,  and  an  established  Kitual, 
not  everything  in  it  was  abolished.  The  grand  cen- 
tral doctrine  of  one  God,  the  duty  of  religious  obe- 
dience, the  paternal  Providence  that  leads  men  out  and 
in  all  their  days,  the  prophetic  appointment  of  sacrifices 
pointing  forward  to  the  Cross  of  Christ,  the  promise  of 
the  Messiah  at  the  Garden  of  Eden,  the  institution  of 
the  Sabbath  when  God  blessed  the  seventh  day  and  hal- 
lowed it,  the  justifying  faith  of  Abraham  who  believed 
and  trusted  God  so  that  it  was  counted  to  him  for  right- 
eousness, the  covenant  by  which  children  are  bound  up 
in  the  same  family-blessing  of  Faith  with  their  parents, 
— all  these  you  find  in  that  Book  of  Genesis,  and  in  that 
first  Biblical  dispensation.  Were  they  abolished  when 
Moses  came,  with  the  Tables  of  the  Law  in  his  hands  at 
Mount  Sinai  ?  Not  one  of  them.  Yery  much  in  that 
Mosaic  age  was  new, — statutes,  tabernacles,  ordinances, 
and  one  national  seat  of  the  national  worship.  But 
much  more  was  old  than  new, — and  of  every  one  of 
those  "  old  things  "  that  I  just  mentioned  there  remains 
some  memorial  and  some  hereditary  power  even  now  in 
our  third  and  Christian  age, — Christ  promising,  even  of 
its  final  consummation,  that  His  spiritual  followers  shall 
be  privileged  to  sit  down  in  the  new  kingdom  above 
with  the  old  believers  and  patriarchs,  Abraham,  Isaac, 
and  Jacob.  There  is  a  sublime  and  majestic  unity  in 
these  revelations.  Moses  is,  in  turn,  superseded  by 
Christ;  the  Law  by  grace  and  truth;  Jerusalem  by  the 
Church  universal.  Yet  not  one  jot  or  tittle  passes  from 
that  old  Law  till  all  is  fulfilled.  The  principles  that 
underlie  the  Eitual  and  Liturgy  of  the  temple  and  the 
synagogue  have  only  a  freer  and  more  expanded  opera- 
tion in  the  worship  of  Christendom ;  prophecy  is  ful- 
filled; types   are  followed  by  their  substance;  and  all 


80  NEW   AND     OLD- 

the  three  dispensations  of  Holy  Scripture  are  one,  be- 
cause within  them  all  is  the  everlasting  Christ, — '^  the 
same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever,"  "the  Alpha  and 
Omega,  the  Beginning  and  the  End." 

These  are  inspiring  and  enlarging  contemplations. 
They  lift  us  out  of  the  petty  round  of  our  narrow  occu- 
pations in  small  cares  and  selfish  calculations,  in  house 
and  shop,  in  the  poor  gossipings,  envyings,  and  competi- 
tions of  societ}^  They  make  us  feel  that  the  world  we 
are  living  in  is  not  ours  but  God's  world,  and  that  all  its 
strange,  blind  ways  are,  after  all,  controlled  by  Him  who 
seeth  the  end  from  the  beginning. 

Yet  even  over  this  exalted  line  of  thought  I  should 
hardly  have  invited  you  to  follow  me  at  this  solemn 
time,  if  I  had  not  been  drawing  nearer  with  you, 
through  such  an  approach,  to  the  very  inmost  seat  of 
what  is  most  practical  and  momentous  in  our  indi- 
vidual relations  with  God  and  with  the  judgment  to 
come.  There  is  an  "  old  "  life  to  be  "  put  oif,"  not  be- 
cause it  is  old,  but  because  it  is  bad ;  there  is  a  "new" 
life  to  be  "  put  on."  Unless  every  part  of  the  frame- 
work and  substance  of  the  Gospel  is  mistaken,  every 
heart  that  is  not  willingly  renewed  to  righteousness 
and  true  holiness  in  the  image  of  Christ  by  God's  Holy 
Spirit  is  dying  the  death  of  sin  ;  then  every  one  of  us 
here  who  has  not  consciously  and  penitently  renounced 
this  world  as  his  master  for  the  sake  of  confessing  and 
serving  Christ  his  Saviour,  is  lost  from  God.  "  That  ye 
put  off  the  old  man  ;  that  ye  put  on  the  new  "  : — this  is 
your  Saviour's  cry  to  you  again  to-day,  from  this  place. 
Were  He  to  enter  here  and  look  in  your  faces,  as  He 
entered  and  looked  round  on  the  old  temple  just  before 
He  suffered,  this  would  be  His  sermon.  Human  nature 
keeps  its  old  weaknesses,  and  wants,  and  wickedness 


NEW   AND    OLD.  81 

IS'otliing  c^n  cover  them  up  from  Him  who  died  to 
deliver  us  from  them,  lie  would  separate  you  here  as 
He  always  did  on  earth,  and  as  He  has  surely  declared 
He  will  finally  at  the  last  day,  into  two  easily  marked 
and  deeply  divided  classes.  The  line  might  not  be  seen 
by  any  outward  profession,  for  men  deceive  themselves 
and  are  deceived.  Those  on  the  right  side  of  it  are  not 
perfect  characters ;  but  that  does  not  put  life  or  hope 
into  the  dying  hearts  of  you  that  are  on  the  wrong  side. 
You  all  know,  or  may  know  by  the  Word  in  the  New 
Testament,  whether  in  an  honest  and  good  heart  you 
have  chosen  Christ  and  followed  Him  in  the  regenera- 
tion or  not.  "  ISTow  then,  as  ambassadors  for  Christ,  we 
beseech  you  in  Christ's  stead,  be  ye  reconciled  to  God." 

What  are  the  "  old  things"  that,  in  such  a  new  revolu- 
tion, and  new  confession,  and  new  creation  in  you,  are 
to  be  kept  and  brought  forth  ?  Not  the  old  life ;  that 
must  be  rooted  out,  for  self-love,  and  pleasure-seeking, 
and  pride,  and  money-getting,  and  frivolity  are  the 
springs  and  goings  forth  of  it.  The  old  things  that  are 
to  be  kept,  when  you  become  a  new  soul  in  Christ  Jesus, 
are  your  old  capacities  and  powers, — the  power  of  choos- 
ing, of  repenting,  of  loving,  of  believing,  of  working  for 
your  Lord,  powers  which  He  gave  you  in  an  awful  trust 
when  He  gave  your  body  breath,  and  your  mind  the 
image  of  Himself.  This  ground- work  of  humanity,  this 
capacity  for  conversion,  for  holiness,  and  for  immortal 
life  is  the  old  element  that  has  not  to  be  given  you 
again.  It  is  there, — a  talent  buried  or  used, — and  if 
buried,  your  Lord  is  asking.  Why  have  you  not  yet  used 
it  for  Him  ?     The  Judge  standeth  at  the  door. 

And  for  the  very  reason  that  He  is  a  merciful  Judge, 
He  does  not  let  our  life  flow  on  in  one  even,  uninter- 
rupted and  continuous  stream  of  time,  with  no  breaks  or 


b2  NEW    AND    OLD. 

turns  in  the  current  to  make  us  stop  and  think  whither 
and  how  fast  we  are  drifting.  He  breaks  it  up  into 
days,  into  years,  into  periods  of  infancy,  youth,  matu- 
rity, manhood  or  womanhood,  old  age, — shifting  the  old 
scene  by  new  employments,  new  relations,  new  sorrows, 
and  new  blessings.  Into  every  such  waymark  He  puts 
a  voice  of  warning,  making  it  a  solemn  minister  of  His 
salvation.  He  says,  of  infants,  to  their  parents,  "  Suffer 
them  to  come  to  Me."  O  child,  remember  thy  Creator 
in  the  days  of  thy  youth;  O  young  man,  rejoice  and 
let  thy  heart  cheer  thee;  but  remember  that  for  all  these 
things  God  shall  bring  thee  into  judgment.  Be  strong; 
overcome  the  wicked  one,  and  let  the  Word  of  God 
abide  in  thee.  O  man  and  woman,  filled  and  eager  with 
business  and  pleasure,  love  not  the  world,  nor  the  things 
that  are  in  the  world.  For  all  that  is  in  the  world,  the 
lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride 
of  life,  is  not  of  the  Father.  "  He  that  doeth  the  will 
of  God  abideth  forever." 

Make  this  a  winnowing  time,  to  sift  out  of  the  old 
things  in  your  habits  and  your  desires  whatever  you  do 
not  dare  to  take  with  you  into  the  day  of  your  reckon- 
ing with  God.  "  Set  thy  house  in  order."  Make  this  a 
"  'New  Year,"  in  a  sense  so  deep,  so  complete  and  so 
blessed,  that,  like  as  Christ  was  raised  from  the  dead,  so 
ye  may  walk  in  newness  of  life ! 

Take  to  you  the  old  Gospel,  the  old  promises  of  God, 
the  old  creed  of  truth,  and  holding  them  fast  as  your 
imperishable  "  treasure,"  move  forward  with  them  in  the 
"  new  "  and  Living  Way ! 


THE  EPIPHANY  GOODNESS. 

First  Sunday  after  Epiphany . 

"Behold  my  Servant,  whom  I  have  chosen;  my  Beloved,  in 
whom  my  soul  is  well- pleased:  I  will  put  my  Spirit  upon  Him,  and 
He  shall  show  judgment  to  the  Gentiles.  He  shall  not  strive,  nor 
cry;  neither  shall  any  man  hear  His  voice  in  the  streets.  A  bruised, 
reed  shall  He  not  break,  and  smoking  flax  shall  He  not  quench,  till 
He  send  forth  judgment  unto  victory.  And  in  His  name  shall  the 
Gentiles  trust."— /S^  Matthew  xii.  18-21. 

Wherever,  in  all  the  world,  in  any  heart  of  Jew  or 
Gentile,  bond  or  free,  formalist  or  prodigal,  there  is  any 
movement  toward  Him,  Christ  encourages  it.  Whether 
it  is  an  outward  movement,  of  travelling  feet,  an  in- 
quiring tongue,  the  open  confession  that  brings  visible 
offerings,  as  with  the  wise  men  that  came  out  of  hea- 
thendom to  Bethlehem  at  the  Great  Epiphany,  or 
whether  it  is  only  the  inward  movement  of  a  secret  de- 
sire after  His  holiness,  it  is  never  the  economy  of  Heaven 
to  despise  it  or  smother  it.  It  may  be  very  feeble  and 
dull;  very  awkward  and  irregular;  very  much  mixed 
with  baser  elements,  which  overlay  it  with  their  un- 
sightly deformities  and  almost  kill  it .  Let  them  kill 
it,  if  you  will,  God  never  kills  it.  It  may  only  smoul- 
der out  of  sight,  like  fire  in  a  ball  of  flax,  where  nothing 
but  smoke  struggles  out  through  the  mass  of  matted 
fibres,  and  a  little  heat  warms  the  hand  that  feels  for  it. 
This  does  not  provoke  the  mighty  Lord  to  "  quench  "  it. 


84:  THE   EPIPHANY   GOODNESS. 

His  hand  is  patient,  and  does  feel  for  it.  He  is  as 
long-suffering  as  He  is  mighty.  By  His  very  name  as  a 
Saviour,  the  business  of  His  ministry,  the  passion  of  the 
"  spirit "  "  put  upon  Him,- '  is  not  to  destroy  the  faint 
flickerings  of  spiritual  life,  but  to  save  them.  Even  the 
fragments  of  that  poor  bread  which  only  nourishes  the 
body  He  would  not  waste,  but  gathered  it  up  in  baskets. 
Much  more  the  broken  and  dying  embers  of  penitence 
and  faith  in  the  soul  will  He  not  quench.  He  will  gather 
and  cherish  and  watch  over  and  fan  them,  if  He  is  not 
hindered,  into  flames  of  vigorous  and  constant  ardor. 

As  with  feeble  religious  affections  in  men's  hearts,  so 
with  mistaken  opinions  in  their  minds.  In  almost  every 
false  system  of  belief,  whether  within  or  outside  the 
limits  of  nominal  Christianity,  there  are  some  traces  of 
truth.  Like  the  seeds  of  ancient  grain  that  were  some- 
times wrapped  up  in  the  winding-sheets  of  dead  bodies 
and  buried  in  dusty  sepulchres  for  centuries,  which  ger- 
minate, and  send  up  the  green  blade,  and  the  full  corn, 
when  air  and  light  and  soil  are  given  them  ages  after, 
so  some  dry  germs  of  God's  early  but  buried  gifts  lie 
lifeless  in  these  dark  religions,  till  Christ,  the  Light  of 
the  world,  quickens  them.  He  came  into  the  world  on 
that  mission.  He  came  not  to  create  a  world,  but  to 
seek  out,  to  gather  up,  to  save,  something  which  had 
been  lost  in  the  world,  and,  taking  hold  of  that,  to  give 
Himself  for  it, — to  breathe  His  own  life  into  it,  to  pour 
out  the  blood  of  His  own  veins  to  revive  it, — and  thus 
to  redeem  and  recreate  the  world.  Notice  how  almost 
every  common  term  that  expresses  the  object  of  Christ's 
mediation  includes  this  little  particle,  which  signifies  that 
His  work  was  a  second  work, — a  doing  over  of  what  had 
been  done,  or  a  bringing  back  of  what  had  been  thrown 
away,  or  a  bringing  up  of  what  had  been  buried  under 


THE   EPIPHANY   GOODNESS.  85 

iniquity  and  falsehood, — re-storing,  re-generating,  re- 
newing, re-covering,  re-forming.  To  save,  to  rescue, 
to  deliver,  to  ransom, — all  imply  that  there  is  a  sub- 
stance of  life  remaining  to  work  upon ;  and  that  the 
Great  Redeemer's  ministry  is  to  seek  it  out  and  save 
it, — in  other  words,  to  take  these  broken,  disordered, 
depraved  elements  of  our  humanity  out  from  under  their 
corrupt  bandages ;  to  set  them  free ;  to  cleanse  them ; 
to  graft  them  into  the  Heavenly  Vine ;  to  train  them 
up  into  fruit-bearing  branches,  as  members  of  His 
own  Life.  In  doing  this  His  patience  and  His  conde- 
scension are  wonderful.  He  despises  no  virtue  because 
it  is  frail.  He  refuses  no  prayers  because  they  are  timid 
or  ignorant.  He  thrusts  away  from  Him  no  inquirers 
because  they  are  yet  beclouded  with  much  doubt  or  su- 
perstition. He  listens  to  them.  He  tells  them  to  come 
nearer.  He  makes  the  way  of  admission  not  harder,  but 
as  easy  as  He  can.  He  lays  hold,  first,  of  everything  in 
man  which  is  already  in  sympathy  with  Him, — the  life 
not  utterly  gone,  the  better  feelings  not  completely  dead, 
and  by  these  He  strives  with  this  seeking  soul  to  in- 
crease its  faith,  and  to  recover  it  altogether.  Be  it  false 
living,  or  false  doctrine,  vice,  heresy,  heathenism,  infidel- 
ity, the  sin  of  publicans  and  harlots, — whatever  the 
transgression,  whatever  the  unbelief.  His  Divine  heart 
so  loves  the  souls  they  enslave,  and  so  longs  to  deliver 
them,  that  He  comes  down  into  the  midst  of  them;  and 
then,  the  point  at  which  He  begins  to  save  is  that  last 
spark  of  unquenched  life  which  gleams  out,  brightens, 
and  warms  toward  Him.  Tliis  is  the  central  miracle 
of  the  Gospel,  and  the  glory  of  the  Cross.  It  is  that 
"  love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge." 

Go  with  it,  this  morning,  to  that  grand  promise  of  the 
gathering  in  of  the  nations  which  now,  at  Epiphany, 


>6  THE   EPIPHANY   GOODNESS. 

tirs  the  heart  and  inspires  the  animating  worship  of  the 
3hurch.  Look,  from  under  it,  at  the  star  in  the  east, 
nd  the  adoration  of  the  magi. 

After  dpscribing  how  silent  and-  unobtrusive  the  Sav- 
our's method  was,  in  His  teaching  and  His  miracles ; 
low  willing  He  was  to  wait  for  the  fulfilment  of  His 
glorious  purposes;  how  He  withdrew  Himself  from 
rowds  and  avoided  noisy  demonstrations,  disappointing 
he  pompous  expectations  of  the  people ;  and  how  all 
his  Divine  patience  was  only  the  calm  surface  of  that 
leep  sea  of  power  which  was  one  day  to  overflow  and 
onvert  the  world, — the  Evangelist  goes  on :  "  That  it 
flight  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  Esaias  the 
^rophet,  saying.  Behold  my  Servant,  whom  I  have 
hosen ;  my  Beloved,  in  whom  my  soul  is  well-pleased  : 

will  put  my  Spirit  upon  Him,  and  He  shall  show 
udgment  to  the  Gentiles.  He  shall  not  strive,  nor  cry  ; 
leither  shall  any  man  hear  His  voice  in  the  streets.  A 
iruised  reed  shall  He  not  break,  and  smoking  flax  shall 
le  not  quench,  till  He  send  forth  judgment  unto  vic- 
ory.  And  in  His  name  shall  the  Gentiles  trust." 
?hat  is,  these  tender  traits  of  His  person,  these  char- 
table  aflections  of  His  Gospel,  this  catholic  economy  of 
lis  kingdom,  this  patient  and  comprehensive  love  of 
lis  sacrifice,  shall  accomplish  the  gathering  in  of  Gen- 
ile  nations  to  His  feet.  He  meets  them  where  they  are. 
lis  judgment  of  them,  as  of  us,  is  first  gentle,  con- 
escending,  and  so  afterward  the  more  terribly  just, 
lis  victory  over  them  is  on  the  Cross  where  He  sufliers 
^r  them.  Oh,  to  helieve  this  is  to  be  "justified  by 
iith." 

Turn  to  the  wise  men,  following  the  star  to  His 
irthplace.  Think  who  they  were,  and  why  they 
ame.     They  were  from  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  that 


THE    EPIPHANY    GOODNESS.  87 

chosen  and  favored  Israel  whose  were  the  covenants, 
the  oracles,  the  fires  of  Sinai,  the  glory  of  Sion,  and  the 
faith  of  the  fathers.  They  came,  doubtless,  from  Persia, 
a  heathen  country.  "With  whatever  distinction  among 
their  countrymen,  they  were  yet  hitherto  but  princes 
among  pagans,  or  a  priesthood  of  superstition.  Their 
business  was  a  vain  attempt  to  read  the  fortunes  of 
empires  and  of  men  by  watching  the  changing  posi- 
tions and  mutual  attractions  of  the  stars.  Ko  plainer 
revelation  of  God's  loving-kindness  and  wisdom  for 
them  stood  before  their  eyes  than  the  cold  splendors 
of  the  midnight  sky.  The  heavenly  commandment  and 
promise  they  must  spell  out  in  the  mystic  syllables  of 
the  constellations,  or  else  grope  on  in  darkness.  The 
sun  was  the  burning  eye  of  an  Unknown  Deity.  With 
night-long,  solemn  vigils,  they  strained  their  eyes  into 
the  heavens;  but  they  saw  no  "Heaven  of  heavens," 
because  they  saw  no  Father  of  forgiveness,  and  no  heart 
of  love,  there.  Astrology  was  their  pursuit,  and  astrol- 
ogy was  neither  a  true  faith  nor  a  true  science.  !N^ot 
Abraham,  nor  Moses,  nor  Elijah,  nor  Daniel,  nor  Isaiah, 
nor  any  of  the  "  glorious  company "  was  their  prophet, 
but  Zoroaster, — a  mysterious  if  not  quite  mythical  per- 
sonage, ever  vanishing  in  the  shadows  of  an  uncer- 
tain antiquity.  These  were  the  men  that  God  was 
leading  to  Bethlehem,  representatives  of  that  whole 
pagan  world  that  He  would  draw  to  the  Saviour. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  must  take  care  not  to  fall  into 
the  popular  mistake  about  these  magi.  They  held  the 
best  religion  of  their  time,  outside  of  Judaism,  Their 
sacred  books  prove  tliem  to  have  been  no  degraded  or 
sensual  idolaters,  probably  not  idolaters  at  all.  When 
they  fed  their  sacred  fires  with  spices  and  fragrant  wood, 
it  was  not  the  fire  they  worshipped,  but  a  strange  and 


88  THE   EPIPHANY   GOODNESS. 

unseen  Light,  of  which  the  fire  was  a  symbol.  Their 
Ormuzd  was  an  Infinite  Spirit,  and  the  star-spirits  were 
his  bright  subordinates.  They  believed  in  immortality, 
in  judgment,  in  prayer,  in  the  sacredness  of  marriage,  in 
obedience,  in  honesty ;  they  practised  carefully  most  of 
the  virtues  of  the  Christian  morality,  including  that  foun- 
dation one  of  truthfulness,  which  is  rare  enough  in  both 
East  and  West,  and  which  Christianity  has  found  it  so 
hard  to  establish  in  public  or  in  private  life,  in  all  its 
eighteen  centuries  of  discipline.  And  to  this  day,  when 
the  American  traveller  or  merchant  meets  among  the 
miserable  native  communities  of  the  East-Indian  cities 
a  citizen  more  intelligent,  more  upright,  of  nobler  man- 
ners and  gentler  hospitality  than  the  rest,  he  is  almost 
sure  to  find  him  a  Parsee  descendant  of  those  Zoroastrian 
students  of  the  stars :  brethren  or  children  of  the  wise 
men  who  offered  their  gold,  frankincense,  and  myrrh  to 
the  infant  Messiah  in  the  stable. 

Now,  from  these  mixed  characteristics  of  the  magi, — 
the  first  worshippers  our  Lord  had  on  earth, — it  is  easy 
to  learn,  I  think,  just  what  their  place  on  the  pages  of 
Scripture  is  meant  to  teach : — practical  truth  for  us  all. 

First,  they  teach  us  this :  that^  in  the  largeness  of  the 
plan  of  His  salvation^  Christ  not  only  hreaJcs  over  all  the 
narrow  notions  of  national,  family,  and  social  prejudice, 
hut  He  permits  every  heart  to  come  to  Him,  in  spite  of 
its  imperfections  and  errors,  hy  the  test  light  and  the 
test  feeling  it  has.  These  astrologers  were  all  wrong 
about  the  stars  presiding  over  the  destinies  of  men,  and 
foretelling  the  birth  of  kings.  Yet,  condescending  to 
them,  taking  them  up  at  that  low  point  of  their  childish 
superstition,  this  "  testimony  of  Jesus,  which  is  the  spirit 
of  prophecy,"  made  use  of  their  astrological  credulity  to 
guide  them  to  Christian  knowledge,  shaping  the  miracle 


THE    EPIPHANY   GOODNESS.  89 

even  to  their  mistake,  by  all  means  to  bring  them  out 
into  "  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  " ;  saving  them  finally 
from  their  error,  in  seeming  to  save  them  by  it. 

It  is  most  impressive  to  see  how  this  patience  and  con- 
descension, beginning  there  at  the  cradle,  run  through 
our  Lord's  personal  ministry  among  men.  He  always 
gains  persons,  just  as  He  gains  the  world,  by  going  down 
to  them.  If  fishermen  are  to  be  converted,  lie  gets  into 
a  boat,  or  sits  down  by  them  as  they  are  mending  their 
nets.  If  ]N"icodemus  is  too  cowardly  to  come  to  Him  in 
the  daytime.  He  lets  him  come  in  the  night,  and  willingly 
wakes  to  explain  to  him  the  new  birth  of  water  and 
spirit  which  is  the  entrance  into  life.  In  order  to  show 
the  proud  doctors  of  the  law  that  all  their  traditional 
learning  is  good  for  nothing  without  a  simple  heart.  He 
goes  in  among  them  at  the  temple,  as  a  child,  listens  to 
them,  and  asks  them  questions,  in  the  fashion  of  their 
Eabbinical  schools.  "When  wicked  women  are  to  be  puri- 
fied. He  allows  them  to  come  in  the  wild  earnestness  of 
their  impulsive  devotion,  and  lets  them  wash  His  feet  with 
tears.  Sometimes  He  reasons  with  men  ;  sometimes  He 
waits  silently  for  them  ;  sometimes  He  sends  them  away 
only  till  they  need  Him  more ;  sometimes  He  passes 
quietly  out  of  their  reach,  to  let  their  passions  cool.  If 
the  cure  of  disease,  or  raising  the  dead,  or  stilling  the 
sea,  will  turn  men's  hearts  to  Him,  He  works  the  out- 
ward wonder  for  the  inward  blessing.  Indeed,  it  is 
probable  that  the  whole  system  of  miracle-working, 
sublime  as  it  is  to  us,  was  rather  a  condescension  of  our 
Lord,  and  looked  to  Him  as  but  an  inferior  ministry, 
— since  He  said,  "  Blessed  are  they  which  have  not  seen 
and  yet  have  believed,"  and  "  If  ye  will  not  believe  Me, 
believe  the  works."  When  He  chose  His  disciples.  He 
adapted  their  calling  to  their  capacity, — some  to  speak, 


90  THE   EPIPHANY   GOODNESS. 

others  to  work.  Because  common  people  are  more 
readily  reached  by  those  in  their  own  condition  He 
chose  poverty,  and  sat  down  to  meat  with  publicans  and 
sinners.  So  when  Ilis  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  preached, 
He  addressed  the  love  of  eloquence  at  Athens,  the  logi- 
cal understanding  at  Rome,  the  versatile  imaginations 
and  emotions  of  the  East  at  Corinth,  Ephesus,  and 
Antioch.  Everywhere,  without  abating  a  whit  the 
strict  sanctity  of  its  principles,  or  the  awfulness  of  its 
righteous  retributions,  the  Gospel  goes  forward,  becoming 
all  things  to  all  men,  taking  men  as  it  finds  them,  suit- 
ing the  manner  and  voice  of  its  appeal  to  their  culture, 
tastes,  and  aptitudes ;  feeling  after  some  better  quality 
or  longing  in  them,  to  lay  hold  of,  by  all  means,  as  St. 
Paul  puts  it,  to  "  save  some."  For  the  present,  Christ 
says  He  is  not  come  to  judge  the  world,  but  to  save  the 
world — quenching  not  the  smoking  ilax.  "When  all 
these  merciful  and  fostering  ministries  are  ended, — the7i 
Cometh  the  judgment,  rendering  unto  every  man  accord- 
ing as  he  has  accepted  or  slighted  them. 

We  see  the  same  gracious  economy  proceeding  about 
us  every  day.  Every  careless,  unchristian  person  is  like 
these  wandering  Gentiles.  Worse  than  that,  he  may 
be  living  in  frivolity,  or  in  pride  and  self-will.  But  the 
Spirit  of  God  is  constantly  at  work,  trying  and  search- 
ing him,  to  see  if  there  is  any  tender  spot  in  his  heart, 
any  sacred  memory,  any  purer  attachment,  any  look  to- 
ward the  stars,  any  nobler  aspiration,  or  at  least  any  sus- 
ceptibility to  suffering,  by  wliich  he  can  be  touched  and 
renewed.  By  that  door  repentance  may  enter.  So  all 
our  personal  traits  are,  one  by  one,  taken  in  hand  by 
the  Spirit,  as  instruments  to  awaken  and  sanctify  us, 
that  we  may  not  perish.  If  pain  and  sorrow  and 
death  are  used,  it  is  only  because  nothing  softer  would 


I 


THE    EPIPHAJSTY    GOODNESS.  91 

rouse  US.  There  is  not  one  stroke  of  superfluous  agony. 
Every  pulse  of  anguish  is  felt  by  God,  as  the  refiner  and 
purifier  of  silver  watches  the  furnace,  sure  to  lift  the 
molten  metal  out,  or  to  cool  the  fire,  when  the  needed 
change  is  wrought.  The  instant  faith's  deep  discipline  is 
accomplished,  Christ  stays  His  hand.  The  bruised  reed 
will  not  be  broken,  nor  the  smoking  flax  quenched,  till 
He  bring  forth  judgment  unto  victory. 

Another  part  of  what  is  taught  by  the  leading  of  the 
Gentile  wise  men  to  Christ  is,  that  at  every  step  forward 
in  the  Christian  life,  each  disciple's  amount  of  privilege 
or  blessing  is  generally  in  proportion  to  the  growth  of  his 
faith,  up  to  that  time.  We  saw,  just  now,  that  these 
Eastern  magi  were  the  purest-minded  and  most  spiritual 
religionists  in  the  heathen  world.  There  can  hardly  be 
a  doubt  that  it  was  for  that  superior  cleanness  of  heart 
that  they  were  honored  with  this  heavenly  illumination, 
and  promoted  to  the  leadership  of  the  whole  Gen- 
tile procession  in  their  pilgrimage  to  the  Son  of  God. 
I  believe  the  rule  of  God's  dealing  is  the  same  with 
ourselves :  that  our  future  advances  in  the  knowledge 
and  obedience  of  the  Gospel  are  always  in  the  degree  of 
our  past  endeavors.  We  are  not  to  carry  the  doctrine  of 
Christ's  condescension  to  such  a  pitch  of  extremity  as  to 
hide  from  view  the  real  dififerences  in  men's  hearts. 
Christ  seeks  for  all,  invites  all,  dies  for  all,  that  none 
might  perish..  But  He  does  not  kindle  a  star  for  every 
one,  nor  make  all  converts  memorable  among  His  saints 
wherever  the  Gospel  is  preached.  There  are  laws  in  tlie 
economy  of  grace,  as  in  the  growth  of  the  body  and 
the  mind.  Blessings  are  according  to  faith.  Faith  is 
nothing  but  the  soul's  willingness  to  receive  Christ's 
blessings,  and  to  receive  them  in  Him  by  whom  alone 
they  can  come.    If,  like  the  wise  men,  you  have  been 


92  THE   EPIPHANY   GOODNESS. 

true  to  the  early  Hglit;  if,  like  Timothy,  you  have 
remembered  what  a  Christian  mother, — ^your  mother 
after  the  flesh,  or  your  mother  in  the  Spirit,  the  Christian 
Church, — has  taught  you ;  if  conscience  has  been  kept 
tender  and  true ;  if,  like  Saul  of  Tarsus,  while  you  were 
only  under  the  law  you  were  a  faithful  and  scru- 
pulous servant  of  the  law, — then  there  is  a  firm  and 
healthy  stock  on  which  your  new-born  Christian  grace 
will  thrive.  Then  the  pagan  abominations  of  a  godless 
youth,  or  the  renounced  delusions  of  worldliness,  or 
of  a  conceited  mind  dallying  with  doubt  and  proud 
of  unbelief,  will  not  hinder  and  darken  your  way 
to  Heaven.  Spiritual  glory  will  be  revealed  to  spirit- 
ual eyes.  Character  will  unfold  and  strengthen  in 
its  heavenly  order.  According  to  your  faith  it  will  be 
unto  you.  Every  new  year  will  set  you  nobly  forward 
toward  higher  purities  of  sanctification.  Power,  pa- 
tience, consistency,  self-control,  peace  with  God,  joy  in 
believing,  victory  over  the  world, — these  and  every  other 
grace  will  grow  with  your  growth.  Such  a  life  will  be 
a  perpetual  journey  of  honor,  with  light  all  the  way, 
and  immortality  at  the  end. 

Once  more,  the  subject  completes  itself  in  the  still 
higher  thought  that,  after  all,  wherever  the  starting- 
point,  whoever  the  travellers,  whatever  the  gentleness 
that  forbears  to  quench  our  feeble  life,  and  however 
merciful  the  long-suffering  that  waits  for  us,  there  is 
an  end  of  the  whole  way,  at  the  feet  of  the  Lord.  All 
His  patience,  His  diversities  of  working,  the  disci- 
pline of  life,  the  dealings  of  the  Spirit ;  all  the  gentle- 
ness and  infinite  charity  in  Christ,  are  for  this  end. 
And  if,  after  all,  we  are  not  found  there, — ^liear  the 
Scripture  of  God, — "  there  remaineth  no  more  sacrifice 
for  sin,  but  a  certain  fearful  looking  for  of  judgment." 


THE   EPIPHANY    GOODNESS.  93 

Judge,  then,  of  yourselves,  my  friends,  whether  this 
is  not  the  unvarying  doctrine  of  God's  vrhole  Word,  of 
His  Providence  in  Christ,  of  the  daily  discipline  of  His 
Spirit.  Through  these  unclean  chambers  of  our  hearts, 
like  the  earnest  woman  who  swept  her  littered  house 
for  the  lost  piece  of  silver,  moves  this  our  Blessed 
Friend, — the  same  who  receives  the  praises  of  saints 
and  the  adoration  of  angels, — searching  amidst  the  poor 
rubbish  that  the  world  and  the  senses  have  scattered 
there  for  some  remaining  sign  of  hope,  some  fire  of 
love  not  quite  gone  out,  some  broken  pledge  of  union 
with  Himself  that  He  may  bind  together  again,  and 
so  make  us  His  own,  in  everlasting  comfort.  Or,  as 
in  another  parable.  He  walks  among  the  stones  and 
thorns  and  thistles,  there  searching  for  stray  affections, 
like  the  shepherd  for  the  wandering  sheep.  I  have 
seen  a  striking  picture,  by  a  great  artist,  of  that  Shep- 
herd, with  the  recovered  sheep  lying  weak  and  fam- 
ished on  His  shoulders.  The  fierce,  dark  wilderness  is 
behind.  A  rocky  precipice  falls  steep  and  rough  to  the 
bitter  sea  below,  and  up  in  the  wintry  sky  whirl  the 
disappointed  vultures,  that  had  waited  for  their  perish- 
ing prey.  How  can  we  help  crying  in  thankful  faith, 
O  faithful  and  everlasting  Shepherd,  find  us  in  our 
wilderness ;  let  not  the  adversary  have  dominion  over 
us ;  quench  not,  but  rekindle  by  Thy  Spirit,  the  dying 
embers  of  our  repentance;  bring  us  home,  where  the 
angels  rejoice  over  every  wanderer  that  was  lost  I 


THE  SOUL  SOUGHT  BY  CHEIST  AND 
SEEKING  HIM. 

Second  Sunday  after  Epijphany. 

"  Again  the  next  day  after  John  stood,  and  two  of  his  disciples; 
and  looking  upon  Jesus  as  He  walked,  he  saith.  Behold  the  Lamb  of 
God  I  And  the  two  disciples  heird  him  speak,  and  they  followed 
Jesus.  Then  Jesus  turned,  and  saw  them  following,  and  saith 
unto  them,  What  seek  ye?  They  said  unto  Him,  Rabbi  (which  is 
to  say,  being  interpreted.  Master),  where  dwellest  Thou?  He  saith 
unto  them.  Come  and  see.  They  came  a!)d  saw  where  He  dwelt,  and 
abode  with  Him  that  day:  for  it  was  about  the  tenth  hour.  One  of 
the  two  which  heard  John  speak,  and  followed  Him,  was  Andrew, 
Simon  Peter's  brother.  He  first  findeth  his  own  brother  Simon,  and 
saith  unto  him.  We  have  found  the  Messias,  which  is,  being  inter- 
preted, the  Christ.  And  he  brought  him  to  Jesus." — St.  John  i.  35-42. 

So  the  loving  biographer,  who,  by  that  wisdom  which 
is  partly  intellectual  and  partly  spiritual,  knew  so  much 
more  of  the  Master  than  we  know,  goes  on,  telling  in 
to-day's  Morning  Lesson  what  was  said  and  done  in 
that  group  of  persons  of  whom  One  was  the  King  of 
heaven  and  earth.  As  to  the  manner  of  the  Divine 
story,  it  is  in  the  same  artless  style  that  a  child  would 
use  in  telling  it  to  another  child.  The  things  told  took 
place  under  St.  John's  own  eyes;  for  when  he  writes 
here  of  there  being  two  disciples  that  were  saluted 
by  John  the  Baptist,  and  that  were  so  honored  as  to  be 
received  as  guests  under  the  Lord's  own  roof,  though  he 
mentions  the  name  of  only  one  of  them,  it  is  because 


THE    SOUL    SOUGHT    BY    CHRIST.  95 

the  other  was  himself.  This  is  his  modest  way  through- 
out his  Gospel :  he  hides  himself  whenever  he  can ; 
and  when  he  must  refer  to  himself  at  all,  he  leaves  out 
the  name.  The  noblest  spirits  are  the  meekest.  Those 
who  have  most  in  them  that  is  worth  showing  are  least 
anxious  to  show  it.  This  best-beloved  apostle  is  always 
thinking  of  his  Saviour,  not  of  himself.  That  is  one 
reason  why  he  is  the  best-beloved.  And  so,  although 
he  is  to  have  all  Christendom,  in  all  ages,  for  his  vast 
and  admiring  audience,  he  is  altogether  unconscious 
and  natural  in  his  narrative,  as  we  all  are  when  we  are 
describing  something  because  of  the  feeling  and  impres- 
sion in  ourselves,  and  not  trying  to  produce  an  effect/b/* 
ourselves.  He  tells  us  what  this  one  said,  and  that  one, 
— the  very  words ;  what  day  it  was,  and  the  hour  of  the 
day;  who  were  there,  and  how  they  were  related  to  each 
other;  he  explains  what  "Eabbi"  and  "Messias" 
mean,  for  fear  some  reader  not  brought  up  in  Judea 
might  be  puzzled  by  a  hard  word.  The  strokes  are 
strong  because  they  are  true,  and  they  make  a  very 
graphic  picture.  Great  orators  never  do  better  than 
this,  l^ay,  it  is  not  a  whit  the  less  likely,  on  this 
account,  but  the  more  certain,  that  the  Evangelist  wrote 
as  he  was  moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

For  the  purposes  of  our  instruction  this  town  might 
be  Bethabara,  beyond  Jordan ;  America  might  be  Syria ; 
it  might  be  you  and  I  that  were  looking  for  Jesus,  and 
finding  Him,  too,  and  listening  to  Him,  and  leading 
our  friends  to  Him,  instead  of  Andrew  and  John  and 
Simon.  This  House  where  we  are  might  be  that  dwell- 
ing where  He  abode,  of  which  He  said,  "  Come  and  see," 
and  where  they  "  abode  with  Him." 

Among  you  who  are  listening  it  is  almost  certain  there 
are  some  hearts  that  are  thus  looking  for  Him,  and 


SJ6  THE    SOUL    SOUGHT   BY    CHRIST. 

wishing  they  might  hear  His  voice:  some  whose  lips 
may  still  refuse  to  utter  their  wants  before  men,  but  who 
have  unsatisfied  desires,  who  are  discontented,  and  some- 
times even  wretched,  to  think  how  they  have  been  so  long 
living, —  whose  consciences  torment  them  with  shame 
for  their  sins,  who  really  know  that  there  is  something  in 
their  lives  which  separates  between  them  and  God.  Are 
not  some  of  you  conscious  of  having  had  occasional 
glimpses  of  a  better  way  and  a  nobler  aim, — hours  when, 
secretly  at  least,  you  have  said  to  the  watchman  on  the 
upper  walls,  "  Saw  ye  Him  whom  my  soul  loveth  ? "  or  to 
Himself,  in  your  prayers,  "  Tell  me  where  Thou  feedest, 
where  Thou  makest  Thy  flock  to  rest  at  noon  :  for  why 
should  I  be  as  one  that  turneth  aside  by  the  flocks  of  Thy 
companions  ?  Draw  me ;  I  will  run  after  Thee."  In  this 
you  are  like  the  world  waiting  for  Christ  before  His 
coming.  It  wanted  Him  without  knowing  clearly  what 
it  wanted.  Busy  as  it  was  with  its  poor  work,  eager  with 
its  ambitions,  mad  with  its  unholy  appetites,  it  was  not 
satisfied ;  and  its  finer  spirits  knew  it.  Deep  down  in 
the  heart  of  humanity  somewhere  there  was  a  restless 
longing  for  a  better  life.  And  hence  one  prophet  says, 
very  affectingly,  that  the  "Desire  of  all  nations  shall 
come," — the  Son  of  Man. 

He  came.  He  has  been  "manifested."  I  will  not 
believe  it  possible  that  all  of  you  can  hear  that  announce- 
ment without  real  feeling.  It  means  too  much,  too 
much,  for  that.  You  cannot,  I  am  sure  you  cannot  all 
be  unconcerned  about  the  rest  of  the  message  which  is 
thus  solemnly  begun.  For  you,  then,  here  in  this  House, 
this  text  is  recorded.  If  we  take  it  by  its  several  parts 
in  order,  and  enter  down  into  its  eternal  signification, 
we  shall  find  it  represents  the  soul  of  man  both  sought 
after  by  its  Saviour  and  seeking  after  Him. 


THE    SOUL    SOUGHT   BY   CHRIST.  97 

1.  "John  stood,  and  two  of  his  disciples,  looking 
upon  Jesus  as  He  walked."  As  in  other  historic 
statements  where  we  have  great  things  to  learn,  our 
minds  go  behind  the  plain  fact  stated  and  inquire  how 
it  happens  to  be,  or  what  lies  behind  it.  Was  it  by 
accident,  was  it  a  matter  of  course,  was  it  one  of  the 
ordinary  "happenings"  of  history,  that  the  Eternal 
and  Only  Begotten  of  the  Father,  whose  name  is  the 
perpetual  worship  of  saints  and  angels,  and  who  had 
dwelt  from  before  all  worlds  with  the  Father,  should 
be  walking  there,  in  a  little  province  of  this  planet,  a 
world  full  of  trouble  and  evil  at  the  best?  They  were 
"  looking  upon  Jesus  as  He  walked."  He  was  walking 
to  find  them,  who  had  it  now  for  the  infinite  joy  of 
their  life  that  they  were  found  of  Him.  They  had  not 
gone  to  bring  Him ;  like  all  of  us,  they  were  too  blind 
and  weak  for  that,  and  would  not  have  known  what 
kind  of  a  Christ  to  look  for.  They  had  not  persuaded 
Him  to  come ;  He  came  of  the  great  "  love  wherewith 
He  loved  them."  They  had  not  arranged  the  arrival 
of  the  Traveller,  "  travelling  in  the  greatness  of  His 
strength."  That  was  the  miraculous  hospitality  which 
brightened  the  skies  over  Bethlehem  with  the  new  star, 
and  set  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  the  new-born 
Child.  No  needy  and  sinning  heart  ever  has  to  furnish 
or  obtain  its  Christ.  Before  it  begins  to  seek,  to  in- 
quire, to  beg.  He  is  already  walking  near.  The  very 
first  word  is  encouragement  for  you.  Christ  is  waiting 
for  you.  God  in  man,  Emmanuel,  is  never  far  from 
where  man  is.  He  may  be  unseen.  Our  best  posses- 
sions are  always  unseen  ;  those  we  love  best  may  be  long 
absent,  but  friendship  has  other  than  the  bodily  eyes. 
All  the  possibilities  of  a  pure  and  holy  life  are  within 
your  reach.     Heaven  itself  is  "brought  nigh."      The 


98  THE   SOUL    SOUGHT   BY   CHEIST. 

blessed  Incarnation  that  takes  millions  of  souls  from 
death  to  life  is  accomplished.  Prophecy  is  fulfilled. 
The  Epiphany  is  a  fact. 

2.  How  do  men  treat  it?  "And  the  two  disciples 
heard  John  speak,  and  they  followed  Jesus."  Now 
begins  man's  part  in  the  great  reconciliation.  It  is  an 
act  that  decides  for  every  man  what  manner  of  man 
he  is,  what  he  lives  for,  and,  when  he  dies,  whether  it  is 
the  agony  of  an  eternal  death  or  the  transient  struggle 
that  ends  in  the  triumph  of  a  life  imperishable.  Not 
every  one,  like  St.  Andrew  (whose  name  means  man)^ 
is  to  be  an  apostle ;  an  apostle  is  one  "  sent,"  commis- 
sioned for  a  special  service.  All  are  to  be  disciples ; 
a  disciple  is  one  who  learns,  for  a  service  that  is  com- 
mon. But  whether  apostle  or  disciple  each  must 
first  "  follow " ;  and  finally  each,  by  following,  learn- 
ing, and  seeing,  will  be  lifted  into  likeness  to  the 
Master  and  enter  into  the  priesthood  and  kingship  of 
Christian  character.  With  the  gifts  and  powers  neces- 
sary for  that  in  His  hand  the  Son  of  God  appears, 
oftering  them  to  you.  The  choice  is  with  you.  Will 
you  look  on  a  little  lohile,  at  the  sound  of  a  new  voice, 
from  curiosity,  from  momentary  impulse,  as  long  as  the 
Church  service  lasts,  as  long  as  the  sympathies  of  the 
social  meeting  keep  you  entertained,  as  long  as  the  sober 
recollection  of  your  sorrow  or  your  sickness  lies  upon 
you,  and  then  turn  and  go  the  other  way,  where  Christ 
does  not  lead  you ;  and  so  will  you  lose  the  sight  of 
Him?  Or  will  you,  cheerfully',  thankfully,  steadily^ 
take  His  Cross  up  and  go  after  Him  whithersoever  He 
goeth  ? 

3.  It  is  not  certain  whether  the  first  impulse  to  follow 
will  prove  a  constant  religious  principle.  "  What  seek 
ye  ? "  He  asks  them.     Eather  a  chilling  and  forbidding 


THE   SOUL   SOUGHT   BY   CHKI8T.  99 

question,  as  it  stands:  love  does  not  take  that  tone, 
unless  it  is  such  profound  and  holy  love  as  is  willing  to 
be  misconstrued  for  a  moment  for  the  sake  of  ensuring 
to  the  beloved  some  unseen  good.  We  cannot  know  the 
manner  of  Christ's  saying  it,  or  how  the  tone  and  look 
went  to  interpret  and  temper  the  severity.  But  we 
know  His  object,  because  we  know  Him,  One  spirit 
ruled  all  His  speech.  He  saw  that  at  just  that  point  the 
motives  of  these  ardent  converts  must  be  lifted  into  the 
light  and  laid  open  to  themselves.  You  may  say,  it  is 
the  Lord  you  are  seeking,  and  that  so  long  as  you  can 
say  that,  you  are  safe.  But  words  that  are  only  words 
are  no  better  for  being  the  highest  and  holiest  we  can 
speak.  "  Coming  to  Christ,"  "  following  Christ,"  "  ex- 
periencing religion,"  "  getting  a  new  hope,"  these  are  all 
great  phrases  if  they  mean  religiously  just  what  they 
mean  literally.  But  Christ  himself  comes  and  searches 
them  out.  "  What  seek  ye  ? "  What  do  you  really  seek, 
when  you  seem  to  be  seeking  the  Saviour?  Is  it  for 
His  sake,  or  only  for  your  own  sake,  that  you  seek  Him  ? 
Is  it  only  to  make  sure  of  a  self-indulgent  heaven  ?  Is 
it  for  the  complacent  feeling  of  belonging  to  a  safe  set 
of  people?  Is  it  only  to  furnish  a  counter-excitement 
to  ease  the  sting  of  some  trouble,  following  a  law  of 
emotional  reaction  that  has  no  grace  in  it,  or  a  senti- 
mental fancy  for  the  excitements  of  religion,  or  for  its 
externals  ?  It  is  a  good  test  for  every  Christian  to  apply 
to  his  own  heart,  whether  he  is  just  awakened  to  his 
duty  or  further  on  at  any  stage  of  his  life.  God  applies 
it  by  many  touchstones.  Time  is  one  of  them ;  at  the 
mere  wearing  out  of  novelty,  the  repetition  of  the  same 
homely  duties,  the  love  of  many  grows  cold.  The 
candid  Scripture  tells  us  of  them :  they  "  went  back." 
Worldly  examples  and  associates  are  another :  "  Demas 


100  THE   SOUL    SOUGHT   BY   CHRIST. 

hath  forsaken  me,  having  loved  this  present  world." 
Spiritual  disappointment  is  another:  results  are  not  so 
striking  as  their  promise;  it  is  small  harvesting,  and 
tame  drudging ;  the  same  old  conflict  and  vexation  every 
day.  What,  then,  are  you  seeking  ?  Is  it  truth  ?  Is  it 
goodness?  Is  it  self-denying  virtue?  Christ  wants 
uncalculating  love,  loyal  love,  disinterested  love,  and 
love  that  works  gladly,  by  faith,  for  His  poorest  and 
meanest  people,  in  His  name.  There  is  no  lack  of  ten- 
derness in  this  question. 

4.  Now,  then,  comes  the  place  for  a  deeper  exercise  of 
that  faith,  and  the  rising  by  it  into  a  higher  life.  Will 
the  disciple  5^ar  the  proof  ?  Will  he  evade  the  question, 
and  simply  follow  along,  on  the  level  of  the  old  decency, 
— going  with  the  multitude,  saying  careless  prayers, 
paying  church  taxes  enough  to  escape  social  scandal,  and 
presuming  that  where  the  Bible  speaks  of  mounting  up 
with  wings  as  eagles,  of  going  from  grace  to  grace,  of 
being  more  than  conquerors,  of  the  joy  of  believing,  and 
of  having  one's  life  hid  with  Christ  in  God,  it  only  means 
worrying  on  tlirough  week-day  cares  and  Sunday  cere- 
monies, half  under  the  law,  and  half  under  the  pitiless 
stare  of  public  opinion,  with  Sinai  for  our  Calvary, 
with  experiments  instead  of  covenants,  with  preaching 
platforms  for  the  Ark  of  the  Fold,  with  a  mere  sus- 
picion that  all  will  come  out  well  enough  in  the  end, 
instead  of  the  assurance  of  a  present  salvation :  with 
a  system  of  interesting  doctrinal  suggestions  suited  to 
the  times,  which  may  be  true  and  may  be  not,  instead  of 
the  promises  that  are  "  yea  and  amen  "  in  the  Gospel  of 
Him  who  is  above  all  "  times,"  "  the  same  yesterday,  to- 
day, and  forever "  ?  Notice  the  spiritual  beauty  in  the 
answer  of  the  two  disciples.  They  call  Him  "  Master  "  ; 
but  not  now  in  the  old  sense  of  the  common  form  of 


THE    SOUL    SOUGHT   BY    CHRIST.  lUl 

salutation.  They  find  a  new  and  tenderer  meaning  in 
that  lordly  title, — the  same  that  the  holy  George 
Herbert  found : 

"How  sweetly  doth  My  Master  sound!    My  Master  I 
As  ambergris  leaves  a  rich  scent 

Unto  the  taster, 
So  do  these  words  a  sweet  content, 
An  Oriental  fragrancy,— My  Master." 

Calling  Him  Master,  they  said,  "Where  dwellest 
Thou  ? "  This  is  the  least  ostentatious  and  yet  directest 
possible  confession  of  a  desire  for  a  closer  personal 
communion.  It  is  precisely  the  growth  of  that  feeling 
in  a  man  which  marks  an  ascent  into  a  purer  and  more 
positive  type  of  spiritual  character.  It  is  a  confession 
of  ignorance,  a  renunciation  of  intellectual  conceit,  a 
penitential  prayer  for  a  hiding-place  in  a  peaceful  pa- 
vilion. It  is  the  question  of  one  whose  brain  is  weary 
of  subtle  contriving,  and  whose  "  locks  are  filled  with 
the  drops  of  the  night."  To  get  clear  of  blind  leaders 
of  the  blind,  to  cease  confounding  speculation  with 
belief,  or  morbid  sensibility  with  piety, — to  come  into 
sympathy  with  the  healthy  and  unexaggerated  earnest- 
ness of  Him  who  could  at  once  gather  up  the  fragments 
of  broken  bread  and  lay  down  His  life  to  save  bad 
men; — yes,  to  "abide"  with  Him,  to  be  under  the 
Lord's  roof,  to  sit  down  and  rise  up  with  Him,  and  to 
be  rooted  and  grounded  in  Him, — ^to  cease  from  self  in 
the  holy  joy  of  this  celestial  fellowship, — that  will  be 
the  summit,  the  mountain  vision,  of  a  Christian's  ex- 
pectation. 

5.  Would  it  be  granted,  only  for  the  asking?  "He 
saith  unto  them.  Come  and  see ! "  Let  that  stand  for 
the  dispelling  of  all  your  doubt.  There  is  no  descrip- 
tion of  the  house  beforehand  to  excite  wrong  anticipa- 


102  THE  SOUL   SOUaHT  BY  CHRIST. 

tions.  Find  out  what  the  Christian  life  is  by  living  it. 
Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  heart  conceived, 
the  things  that  He  hath  prepared.  The  feast  in  the 
Christian's  heart,  the  antepast  of  Heaven,  is  not  under- 
stood by  verbal  pictures  of  it,  bat  only  as  we  ripen 
spiritually  for  the  relish  of  it.  When  the  Bridegroom 
leads  His  spouse  to  the  banqueting-house,  there  is  no 
attempted  enumeration  of  the  delicacies  in  store.  It  is 
only  said,  how  finely !  that  "  the  banner  over  her  is 
love";  leaving  it  for  a  growing  faith  to  learn  what  He 
will  give  His  people,  whose  own  meat  and  drink  it  is  to 
do  His  Father's  will.  "Come  and  see."  "Him  that 
Cometh  to  Me  I  will  in  no  wise  cast  out."  "Knock,  and 
it  shall  be  opened." 

6.  "  They  came  and  abode  with  Him."  If  they  had 
been  like  some  Christians,  they  would  have  disbelieved 
that  any  so  great  blessing  and  honor  could  be  really  in- 
tended for  persons  hitherto  so  insignificant  and  undeserv- 
ing ;  —  as  if  God's  favors  were  ever  granted  because  we 
are  deserving !  If  they  had  been  like  some  of  us,  they 
would  have  hesitated  between  resolving  and  doing,  and, 
having  professed  a  religious  interest,  they  would  have 
stopped  short  between  the  word  and  the  deed.  With 
true  saints,  however,  and  with  all  who  ever  mean  to  be 
saints,  believing  action  must  be  not  only  the  uniform  but 
the  immediate  follower  upon  inquiry.  Faith  takes  God 
at  His  word.' 

T.  And  now,  see  playing  outward  the  holy  power 
which  has  been  at  work  in  the  man's  own  heart  and 
character.  It  begins  to  take  the  form  of  active  useful- 
ness and  to  testify  for  Christ  abroad ;  the  operation  of 
the  missionary  spirit.  !N"o  sooner  is  the  awakened  heart 
in  actual  fellowship  with  Christ,  and  settled  on  that 
centre,  than  it  begins  to  cast  about  and  ask  what  it  can 


THE   SOUL    SOUGHT   BY    CHRIST.  103 

do  for  Him.  IS'o  matter  in  what  spliere.  No  time  is  to 
be  lost  in  discussing  methods,  debating  difficulties,  or 
wondering  whether  it  is  worth  while  to  undertake  to  do 
good  at  all  if  it  can  only  be  done  on  a  small  scale  or  in 
one's  own  pattern-way.  As  some  one  says,  there  are  two 
sorts  of  people :  those  that  go  and  do  the  thing,  and  those 
that  stand  and  wonder  why  it  was  not  done  after  some 
other  fashion.  St.  Andrew  begins  at  the  nearest  point ; 
begins  in  his  own  household.  "  He  first  findeth  his  own 
brother  Simon."  There  is  no  postponement  for  a  com- 
plete plan,  for  the  "  times,"  for  the  weather,  for  becom- 
ing "good  enough,"  for  great  occasions.  His  heart  is 
full,  and  he  does  what  he  can.  How  soon  this  spirit 
in  all  the  followers  of  Christ  would  bring  the  world  to 
His  feet, —  so  fearless,  so  self-forgetful,  so  hearty.  Out 
the  mighty  conviction  comes, —  must  come: — let  him 
that  hath  ears  hear,  and  whosoever  will  let  him  come. 
"When  thou  art  converted,  strengthen  thy  brethren,  and 
call  them  that  they  may  be  strengthened.  And  when  you 
are  at  the  door,  the  Great  Shepherd  will  listen  not  only 
for  your  "  Here  am  I,"  but  for  the  better  plea,  "  Here 
are  those  whom  Thou  hast  given  to  believe  and  to  come 
through  my  life,  or  my  tongue, —  children,  relatives, 
friends,  neighbors :  the  living  gifts  of  a  new  Epiphany." 

The  subject  is  completed,  dear  friends,  with  two 
thoughts  belonging  to  it,  specially  fitted  to  this  day. 
What  the  one  brother  says  to  another  is  a  joyful  recog- 
nition of  the  fulfilment  of  ancient  promises.  "  We  have 
found  the  Messias," — predicted  and  expected, —  Him  of 
whom  Moses  and  the  prophets  did  write.  Epiphany, 
like  Advent,  is  peculiarly  sacred  to  prophecy.  The 
prophets  lifted  the  veil  from  before  the  nations  sitting 
in  darkness.     They  should  see  a  "  great  Light." 

Finally,  what  was  it  that  roused  and  started  these  two 


104  THE   SOUL    SOUGHT   BY    CHKIBT. 

disciples  on  their  search,  and  brought  them  to  their  full 
acceptance  before  their  predicted  Lord  ?  "  Behold  the 
Lamb  of  God."  They  beheld,  followed,  believed,  and 
lived.  This,  then,  is  the  message  of  Christ's  witnesses 
to  the  world.  All  preaching  of  the  Gospel  must  begin 
and  end  here.  Epiphany  and  Easter,  Advent  and  Pas- 
sion, are  one.  "Behold  the  Lamb  of  God!"  Not 
Christ  the  Pattern  only,  not  Christ  the  Teacher  only, 
not  Christ  the  Bridegroom  or  the  Shepherd  or  the 
King  only,  but  Christ  the  Sufferer;  suffering  with  us, 
and  for  us;  —  the  "Lamb  slain."  Stand  where  we  will 
in  the  annual  round  of  faith's  blessed  commemorations, 
never  can  we  forget  to  say,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God, 
which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world."  For  through 
all  that  round  sin  walks  near  us;  in  ourselves.  And 
there  is  in  us  no  justification.  In  the  Son  of  Man  we 
know  that  God  is  faithful  and  just  to  forgive,  and  to 
cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteousness. 


THE    LAW  OF  CHKlSTIAK   EISTLAKGEMENT. 

Third  Sunday  after  Epiphany, 

"In  every  nation  he  that  feareth  God,  and  worketh  righteousness, 
is  accepted  with  Him." — Acts  x.  35. 

It  has  been  made  an  objection  to  Christianity  that  it 
involves  a  system  of  religious  privileges  expressly  lim- 
ited, for  some  two  thousand  years,  to  a  single  nation. 
Admitted,  it  is  said,  that  the  New  Testament  proposes 
a  more  catholic  plan,  and  offers  its  advantages  impar- 
tially to  the  whole  race,  irrespective  of  national  boun- 
daries :  still,  the  ITew  Testament  makes  itself  responsi- 
ble for  the  Old ;  the  Gospel  for  the  Judaism  on  which 
it  was  grafted.  !N"o  intenser  national  exclusiveness  than 
the  Jewish,  it  is  added  with  truth,  was  ever  known. 
The  feeling  of  every  Hebrew  for  every  foreigner  was  a 
mixture  of  political  animosity,  religious  intolerance,  and 
social  contempt ;  a  triple  combination  of  hereditary  pas- 
sions hard  to  break  down.  The  sacred  writings  appear 
to  encourage  it.  How  is  this  consistent  with  the  benev- 
olence of  a  God  whose  love  is  wider  than  the  world  ? 

In  your  minds.  Christian  believers,  this  precise  form 
of  scepticism  may  not  take  a  very  definite  shape.  But 
it  is  one  branch  of  a  difficulty  about  the  Bible  of  a 
more  general  kind,  never  more  common  than  now. 
That  difficulty  is  this :  an  apparent  conflict  between  the 
clearer  moral  sentiments  and  judgments  of  men  with 


106  THE   LAW    OF   CHRISTIAN    ENLARGEMENT. 

some  of  the  literal  records  or  else  with  some  of  the 
traditional  interpretations  of  Scripture.  Men  saj,  "  We 
know  something  of  the  character  of  the  Christian's  God  : 
it  is  not  compatible  with  that  character  that  a  few  Ori- 
ental tribes  should  be  segregated  and  isolated  from  the 
rest  of  the  race  and  made  the  petted  child  of  heaven." 
The  same  conflict  may  gather  about  other  apparent 
points  of  incongruity, — as  the  Hebrew  criminal  code, 
the  destruction  of  the  Canaanites,  or  the  standard  of 
moral  character  in  conspicuous  Jewish  leaders.  In  other 
words,  you  make  use  of  the  sharper  moral  vision  and  the 
broader  ideas  for  which  you  are  actually  indebted  to  the 
Gospel  as  a  revelation,  and  as  an  educating  power,  to 
criticise  and  fault  the  Gospel. 

The  Church  must  not  shrink  from  this  criticism.  If  it 
is  fair,  it  must  be  met.  If  it  is  unfair,  it  can  be  shown 
to  be. 

I  mention  three  answers. 

First  stands  the  recorded  fact  that  long  before  this 
separation  and  isolation  of  Israel  took  place,  God  de- 
clared that  it  was  not  the  permanent  law  or  normal 
method  of  His  Divine  purpose  with  His  children :  it  was 
rather  a  special  and  provisional  economy  brought  in  to 
meet  a  peculiar  and  temporary  emergency  occasioned  by 
the  wrong  choice  of  men.  At  the  very  moment  when  the 
special  selection  began  to  be  made,  an  explicit  and  re- 
iterated prediction  was  carefully  annexed  to  it  that  it 
was  to  be  used  only  for  a  required  end,  and  would  then 
be  expanded  into  a  grand  Brotherhood  of  the  world,  of 
equal  advantages,  lying  four-square  and  open  to  all  the 
quarters  of  the  earth,  and  which  should  be  no  respecter 
either  of  nationalities  or  of  persons.  The  man  in 
whom  the  special  calling  began  was  Abraham.  And  he 
was  the  very  man  to  whom  the  Lord  broke  apart  the 


THE   LAW    OF   CHRISTIAN    ENLARGEMENT.  107 

august  silence  of  tlie  midniglit  sky,  and  spoke  from 
beyond  the  stars,  to  say,  that  among  his  descendants 
there  should  be  a  "  seed,"  a  certain  wonderful  Son,  in 
whom  not  one  country  or  people  only,  but  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth,  should  be  blessed.  That  mysterious  Shep- 
herd-king of  the  whole  human  flock  was  to  have  a  hu- 
man mother,  and  that  mother  a  Hebrew : — "  born  of 
a  woman  and  born  under  the  law,"  so  as  to  connect  the 
special  preparation  with  the  universal  blessing: — but 
that  He  might,  on  the  other  side,  be  free  of  every  pos- 
sible human  restriction.  His  Father  was  to  be  the  Father 
of  all  that  live,  and  His  Life  begotten  from  eternity. 
There  is  therefore  no  mistake,  no  concealment,  no  re- 
consideration or  suspense  in  the  plan.  The  promise  in 
Genesis  is  as  broad  and  as  catholic  as  the  preaching  of 
St.  Peter  in  the  text  from  the  Acts. 

Secondly,  is  there  anything  in  the  method  itself,  the 
selection  of  the  Hebrew  tribes  and  the  Jewish  Church, 
that  makes  a  reasonable  justification  of  it  to  the  high- 
est moral  instincts, — suppose  we  must  be  judges  of 
God's  way  ?  When  a  Christian  missionary  goes  into  a 
population  of  barbarians,  why  does  he  gather  in  a  score 
or  two  of  children,  out  of  hundreds,  into  a  school,  leav- 
ing the  rest  for  the  time  untaught  ?  When  an  intelli- 
gent American  merchant,  doing  business  in  a  pagan 
seaport,  wants  to  benefit  that  paganism,  why  does  he 
choose  out  one  or  two  native  youths  of  bright  parts  and 
send  them  to  America  or  England  for  an  education, 
instead  of  spending  the  same  amount  of  money  in 
scattering  spelling-books  among  the  heathen  houses? 
When  you  want  to  introduce  into  a  manufacturing  inter- 
est an  original  and  improved  kind  of  machinery,  why 
do  you  send  a  single  student  to  the  best  engineering 
school  in  the  United  States  or  Europe,  instead  of  issuing 


108  THE   LAW    OF   CHRISTIAN    ENLARGEMENT. 

an  exhortation  some  morning  to  all  the  agents  and  mas- 
ters of  the  mills  to  improve  themselves  in  that  depart- 
ment of  science  ?  The  principle  appears  to  be  pretty 
plain  in  these  practical  undertakings : — it  is  the  principle 
of  selection  and  concentration,  for  the  sake  of  an  ulte- 
rior benefit  that  is  to  become  general,  a  result  that  is  to 
be  wide-spread.  Such  is  the  nature  of  the  human  mind 
and  of  human  society  that  practically  this  is  the  better 
and  shorter  way.  Do  for  one  mind,  thoroughly,  first, 
what  you  want  the  whole  to  do  afterward.  ]^ow,  in  the 
world,  when  Moses  was  lying  all  unconscious  of  it  in 
the  little  rush-basket  in  the  !N"ile,  the  great  problem  was 
how  to  stop  the  race  from  going  any  further  wrong, 
into  stark  savagery  and  idolatry,  and  how  to  turn  it  about, 
and  get  it  ready  for  the  setting  up  of  a  Divine  order 
upon  it,  and  for  the  reconciling  and  renovating  of  it  with 
the  heavenly  communion  it  had  lost.  This  was  the 
thing  to  be  done.  And  it  was  to  be  done,  suppose,  not 
by  the  thrusting  in  of  an  arbitrary  revolution,  a  stupen- 
dous miracle  of  mechanism  which  would  simply  set  the 
outward  works  all  right,  but  would  leave  the  springs  o  f 
spiritual  life, — love,  choice,  energy,  faith, — all  untouched 
and  unchanged.  The  very  thing  wanted  was  to  bring 
in  and  set  up  these  grand  interior  holy  forces  in  the  soul. 
"The  world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God."  God  only 
could  make  it  know  Him ;  and,  being  what  He  is.  He 
could  do  it  only  by  preserving  man's  freedom,  and  re- 
specting every  law  wrought  into  his  nature.  He  took, 
therefore,  what  we  call  the  practical  way ;  He  used  the 
principles  of  selection,  concentration,  and  adaptation. 
He  did  it  gradually.  He  did  it  by  human  instruments. 
He  limited  the  scene  and  the  numbers.  He  took  this 
child  out  of  the  rush-basket,  bearing  in  his  veins  the 
finer  blood  of  that  Hebrew  pastoral  people  that  God 


THE    LAW    OF    CHRISTIAN    ENLARGEMENT.  109 

liad  led  with  His  own  hand  and  voice  before,  over  the 
hills  and  pastures  of  Mesopotamia  and  Canaan, — the 
most  reverent  and  conscientious  on  the  earth.  He 
trained  that  child  in  the  best  scientific  school  of  the  time, 
— "  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,"  and  then  He 
set  him  at  the  head  of  a  commonwealth.  He  selected 
a  priesthood.  He  made  elders.  He  organized  a  State. 
He  arranged  a  ritual.  He  chose  a  limited  territory  in 
the  right  spot.  And  then  He  put  this  crude  and  child- 
ish nation  down, — not  in  liberty  yet, — they  were  not 
ripe  for  that, — but  under  discipline  and  regulation ;  not 
in  the  Gospel  yet, — for  they  would  abuse  and  waste  it  if 
they  had  it, — but  in  the  Law.  This  was  the  school 
and  the  scholar.  In  a  word  God  did, — only  better  and 
more  gloriously,  and  with  some  sublime  signals  of  mi- 
raculous justice  ^and  mercy  breaking  through  all  along 
to  turn  to  it  the  eyes  of  mankind  and  the  reverent  mem- 
ory of  the  generations  forever, — just  what  wisdom  must 
do.  He  chose  out  one  nation,  and  sent  it  to  school  to 
learn  the  prophetic  rudiments  of  Christianity  and  to 
make  ready  a  people  prepared  for  the  Lord.  The  Old 
Testament  is  simply  the  narrative  of  that  training  school 
for  Christ  and  for  men.  Some  parts  are  more  obscure 
than  others ;  for  the  time  was  a  great  way  back,  and  the 
materials  of  knowledge  were  scanty,  and,  above  all,  the 
Infinite  and  Inscrutable  One,  whose  ways  are  often  past 
our  finding  out,  was  the  Master.  But  this  is  the  key  to 
the  scheme.  Was  not  the  plan  magnificent  ?  Can  the 
best  critic  or  the  shrewdest  objector  suggest  a  wiser  way 
to  save  and  lift  to  heavenly  places  enervated,  sensual, 
vulgar,  wretched  humanity  ?  And  when  we  take  a  view 
of  the  whole  Old  Testament  history  wide  and  deep  and 
rational  as  this, — with  all  its  strange  incidents,  its  erring 
heroes,  and  faulty  saints,  intermingled  with  its  splendid 


110  THE   LAW   OF    CHKISTIAN    ENLARGEMENT. 

virtues,  its  sublime  loyalty,  its  eloquence  and  poetry  un- 
equalled in  all  the  literature  of  the  world,  and  its  super- 
natural prophecies, — all  intense  and  bright  with  hallowed 
fire,  because  it  is  the  school  of  God,— is  it  not  a  very 
poor  thing  indeed  to  carp  at  an  unexplained  passage 
here  and  there,  or  to  sneer  and  cavil  at  some  half- 
veiled  feature  in  the  majestic  working  out  of  the  design  ? 

And  all  this  while  the  original  intention,  disclosed  to 
the  patriarch  far  back  on  the  plains,  under  the  stars, 
was  never  forgotten,  or  dropped,  or  suffered  to  fail. 
"We  were  reading,  the  other  morning,  a  piece  of  fiery 
logic  from  one  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  to  prove  that  no 
temporary  narrowing  of  the  system  under  the  law,  for 
a  special  object,  would  disannul  or  alter  the  older  and 
broader  and  more  catholic  revelation  to  Abraham,  four 
hundred  and  fifty  years  before, — a  covenant  having  in  it 
by  promise  the  largeness  of  the  Gospel  and  the  uni- 
versality of  Christ.  When  the  Jew  should  have  been 
drilled  and  taught,  the  Gentiles  would  be  gathered  in, 
"No  siderial  motion  in  astronomy,  no  regularity  in  celes- 
tial cycles  and  orbits  will  be  more  sure  than  the  rising, 
in  the  due  and  foretold  time,  of  the  Epiphany  star. 
The  Saviour  will  fulfil  both  the  parts  of  the  great  plan : — 
"  A  light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles,  and  the  glory  of  My 
people  Israel." 

There  is  a  third  explanation  to  relieve  the  alleged 
narrowness  of  the  Jewish  religion, — and  that  is  its  con- 
stant progress  as  it  goes  on  into  a  larger  and  larger 
breadth  and  liberty,  more  and  more  like  the  breadth  and 
liberty  of  the  great  world-embracing  Church  and  Gospel 
in  which  it  is  finally  merged,  as  the  winding  river  is  lost 
in  the  sea. 

"We  have  only  to  study  the  Hebrew  prophets,  and  to 
study  them  with  some  system,  in  the  order  of  their 


THE    LAW   OF    CHRISTIAN    ENLARGKMENT.  Ill 

living  and  writing,  with  this  clew  in  hand, — the  pro- 
gressive enlarging  of  their  conceptions  of  God's  good- 
ness to  the  whole  Gentile  world, — to  find  ample  demon- 
strations that  the  Divine  tuition  they  were  under  was 
doing  its  work.  Instead  of  over-coloring  this  evangel- 
istic element  in  Old  Testament  prophecy,  I  doubt 
whether  the  Christian  pulpit  or  Christian  writers  have 
ever  adequately  represented  it.  With  a  hostility  in  their 
blood  to  everything  foreign,  intenser  than  any  people  on 
earth,  probably,  has  ever  felt ;  with  an  intolerance,  arro- 
gance, and  superciliousness  all  the  more  tenacious  and 
unsparing  because  bound  up  with  their  religious  scruples, 
there  was  yet  never  a  national  mind  at  all  approaching 
theirs  in  the  frequency,  earnestness,  solemnity,  pathos,  of 
the  expectation  and  hope  of  the  breaking  down  of  all 
international  walls,  and  the  gathering  in  of  all  the  fam- 
ilies and  kingdoms  of  the  continents  and  islands  to  an 
equal  share  with  themselves  in  the  peace  and  glory  of 
the  Messiah's  dominion.  To  be  sure  the  gathering  w^as  to 
be  unto  Zion ;  Israel  was  still  to  be  central  and  somehow 
parental ;  yet  there  was  to  be  equality.  And  the  beauty 
and  splendor  of  the  fore-visions  of  that  homeward 
march  of  the  Gentiles,  as  we  have  them  in  all  the  Epiph- 
any chapters,  have  no  match  in  any  book.  Should  any 
nation  on  earth  instantly  drop  all  that  is  seliish  in  its 
policy,  and  all  that  is  exclusive  in  its  patriotism,  and 
proclaim  an  economy  of  the  universal  and  impartial  open- 
ing of  every  door  of  privilege  to  all  lands,  the  moral 
spectacle  would  really  be  less  striking  than  the  Hebrew 
predictions  of  Gentile  conversion  under  Christ.  The 
strain  grows  louder  and  more  confident  all  along: — till, 
in  Malachi,  we  have  it  resounding  in  that  sentence  at  the 
opening  of  our  service,  to  which  the  famous  saying  of 
the  great  orator,  where  the  morning  drum-beat  of  the 


112  THE   LAW   OF   CHRISTIAN    ENLARGEMENT. 

British  Empire  circles  the  earth,  is  but  a  feeble  figure : 
"  From  the  rising  of  the  sun,  even  unto  the  going  down 
of  the  same.  My  name  shall  be  great  among  the  Gentiles ; 
and  in  every  place  incense  shall  be  offered  unto  My 
name,  and  a  pure  offering :  for  My  name  shall  be  great 
among  the  heathen,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." 

Give  a  few  moments  now  to  a  use  of  St.  Peter's  words 
which  will  bring  them  down  to  ourselves.  "  In  every 
nation  he  that  feareth  God,  and  worketh  righteousness,  is 
accepted  with  Him." 

The  sense  here  is  not  theological,  but  popular;  so 
that  they  are  wide  of  the  mark  who  suppose  that  the 
Apostle  means  to  take  back  all  that  he  preached,  up  and 
down  the  world,  and  wrote  in  his  Epistles,  of  every 
man's  need  of  true  repentance,  and  of  the  faith  in 
Christ  as  a  Redeemer,  and  of  our  reaching  a  spiritual 
and  eternal  life  only  through  that  faith.  That  would  be 
to  unsay  all  the  burning  confessions,  and  quench  all  the 
noble  enthusiasms,  of  his  Christian  life  and  apostleship. 
"Why,  then,  should  he  be  preaching  Christ,  and  the 
Cross,  as  the  "  only  way,"  to  Cornelius,  and  to  every  Jew 
and  Gentile  tliat  he  can  reach?  IS^o.  He  means  by 
"fearing  God  and  working  righteousness"  this: — In 
every  nation,  now  that  Jesus  Christ  has  come,  there  is 
an  equal  access  to  the  open  door  for  every  tongue  and 
tribe  and  people.  Under  this  new  and  heavenly  reign 
of  light  and  love  which  has  been  set  up,  all  are  free 
citizens.  Partition-walls  are  levelled.  Caste,  rank,  pre- 
scription, arbitrary  terms  of  admission,  are  done  with. 
The  Pentecostal  signs  mean  nothing  less.  Circumci- 
sion, miracles,  Jew  and  Gentile,  Barbarian,  Scythian, 
bond,  and  free,  are  without  difference  at  Bethlehem  and 
Calvary,  at  baptism,  at  the  Christian  communion,  every- 
where in  the  Church,  and  at  the  resurrection.     There 


THE    LAW    OF   CHEISTIAN    ENLARGEMENT.  113 

are  no  external  disqualifications.  There  are  no  internal 
incapabilities  for  being  saved.  You  can  all  be  saved  if 
you  will :  you  will  live  forever,  if  you  will  let  tlie  life 
of  the  Spirit  in  Christ  enter  in.  "  Fearing  God  and 
working  righteousness"  is  the  universal  ground  of  ac- 
ceptance, not  meritoriously,  into  heaven,  but  into  the 
gracious  privileges  and  helps  of  the  Church  and  family 
of  Christ  in  this  world,  as  the  school  for  heaven.  All 
this  St.  Peter  had  just  found  out  in  a  peculiar  way, — 
the  vision  of  the  four-cornered  sheet  three  times  let  down 
from  heaven,  to  show  him  that  the  ceremonial  distinc- 
tions of  things  to  be  lawfully  eaten, — symbols  of  all  other 
natural  disqualifications, — were  abolished.  The  Gentile 
world  w^hich  God  has  now  liberated  from  its  long  neglect, 
"  call  not  thou  common."  But  go  to  it,  preach  to  it, 
respect  and  love  human  nature  in  Cesarea  just  as  much 
as  in  Jerusalem  or"  Bethany :  there  is  no  difi'erence.  The 
Gospel  is  no  respecter  of  persons.  Christ  died  for  all. 
The  Church  is  Catholic.  The  Christian  is  tolerant  and 
friendly  to  all  souls,  for  his  Lord's  sake.  And  while  St. 
Peter  spoke  after  that  gracious  fashion,  "  on  the  Gentiles 
also  was  poured  out  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

So  the  Word  and  Spirit  of  Christ  go  on  constantly 
filling  out  our  small  measures  of  charity  and  hope, — 
breaking  up  our  petty  and  jealous  judgments,  enlarging 
our  sympathies  for  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men. 
This  is  certainly  one  great  and  very  beautiful  teaching  of 
this  season.  We  have  a  great  many  personal  and  private 
limitations ;  each  has  his  own.  We  all  live  inside  sev- 
eral concentric  circles,  self  being  the  centre-point;  and 
unless  we  watch  and  pray,  and  deny  ourselves,  and  give 
away  a  great  deal,  these  are  constantly  narrowing  in  and 
cramping  us  into  smaller  and  meaner  souls.  First,  there 
is  the  circle  of  our  own  purely  personal  interests, — in 


114  THE   LAW    OF   CHRISTIAN    ENLARGEMENT. 

physical  ease  and  comfort,  in  property,  in  dress,  in  eat- 
ing, in  mawkish  sentiments  and  a  self-indulgent  giving 
way  to  them,  to  the  inconvenience  or  injury  of  others. 
Christ,  by  the  Cross  of  His  sacrifice,  makes  His  whole 
ministry  among  men,  and  His  Gospel,  a  constant  re- 
monstrance against  this;  and  unless  we  catch  that  spirit, 
and  give  up  self  for  service,  and  for  one  another,  w^e 
can  be  none  of  His.  Next  is  the  circle  of  the  family,  of 
kindred.  This  is  a  little  wider,  but  often  only  a  little. 
Because  family  fastidiousness,  family  pride,  and  family 
resentments,  are  all  very  belittling  and  unchristian  feel- 
ings. We  may  only  see  ourselves,  and  love  ourselves, 
reflected  in  our  children,  or  other  kindred  that  are  spe- 
cially necessary  to  our  comfort.  Then  there  is  an  un- 
christian fondness  for  them  while  they  live,  and  an  un- 
christian, unsubmissive  sorrow  for  them  when  they  die. 
The  Epiphany  doctrine  requires  us  to  look  into  these 
luxurious  gratifications,  to  see  whether  our  absorption  in 
our  own  domestic  pleasures  restricts  our  sympathies  for 
strangers,  for  neighbors,  for  the  poor,  and  so  stops  our 
growth  in  the  Lord's  likeness.  Then  there  is  the  circle 
of  our  own  social  set, — a  very  dangerous  as  well  as  sub- 
tle enemy  to  true  spirituality,  as  well  as  to  true  nobleness 
and  largeness  of  character.  The  very  selectness  of  the 
associations  gives  a  charm  to  them.  All  the  mutually 
admiring  and  complacent  members  just  reflect  each 
others  prejudices,  study  to  please  each  other's  whims, 
listen  to  each  other,  ridicule  or  satirize  the  rest  of 
society,  and  so,  of  course,  must  stop  growing  in  all  that 
constitutes  greatness  of  heart.  Then  there  is  the  circle 
of  business  engagements,  where  the  confinement  of 
attention  and  the  engrossment  of  concern  at  last  become 
a  passion,  or  a  habit,  that  looks  like  necessity, — and  the 
slave  of  mercantile  ambition,  or  routine,  sacrifices  home 


THE    LAW    OF   CHKISTIAN    ENLARGEMENT.  115 

and  clnirch,  liis  higher  life,  his  spiritual  culture,  his 
communion  with  his  Lord,  for  the  poverty  that  is  thus 
starving  him  in  all  the  generous  and  lofty  desires  of  his 
manhood.  Beyond  these  still  lies  the  circle  of  patriotic 
attachments,  or  devotion  to  country.  And  scarcely  yet, 
— Christian  as  we  claim  to  be, — has  the  idea  of  the 
brotherhood  of  nations  in  one  family  and  Church  of 
God  entered  into  the  statesmanship,  much  less  into  the 
politics  and  legislation,  of  even  civilized  man. 

We  are  not  to  suppose  that  Epiphany  signifies  to  us  a 
mere  sending  out,  in  a  lifeless  and  formal  sort  of  way, 
of  a  few  missionaries  here  or  there  to  foreign  countries. 
Done  earnestly  and  heartily,  that  is  worth  doing,  and, 
in  proportion  as  we  really  appreciate  what  Christ  is  to 
the  world  and  to  ourselves,  we  shall  probably  do  it,  or 
give  for  it,  more  and  more,  the  more  Christianlike  we 
become.  Men  may  say  they  prefer  to  give  their  mission- 
ary money  nearer  home,  where  they  see  what  becomes 
of  it.  But  remember  that  it  is  by  setting  up  standards 
and  beacons,  getting  hold  of  a  few  here  and  there  and 
Christianizing  them,  even  when  results  look  small,  that 
a  great  testimony  to  Christ  is  finally  given.  Make  tlie 
Gospel  "  witness  to  all  nations,"  before  the  end  comes. 
The  Apostles  travelled  and  sailed,  casting  their  bread 
upon  the  waters,  not  too  anxious  to  count  up  visible 
results.  The  great  commission  was,  "  Go,  preach  the 
Gospel  to  all  nations."  There  is  no  knowing  where  the 
fruit  will  spring. 

But,  above  all,  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  there  is 
a  kind  of  heathendom  within  ourselves  to  be  yet  con- 
verted. Surely  we  are  alike  in  this.  Self,  in  disguised 
shapes,  behind  masks,  and  with  cunning  weapons,  still 
fights  bitterly  against  the  large  love  and  the  generous 
righteousness  of  the  true  disciple.      We  ourselves  are 


116  THE   LAW    OF   CHRISTIAN   ENLABGEMENT. 

the  Gentiles  for  whom  these  glorious  prophecies  were 
written,  and  the  Epiphany  light  was  sent,  and  the  sac- 
rifice was  made.  What  a  miserable  failure  it  will  be,  if, 
after  all,  looking,  as  He  surely  does,  into  our  hearts,  God 
sees  there  no  true  reflection  of  the  light  of  His  glory  in 
the  face  of  Jesus  Christ  I 


THE  SAYIOUE  IN  THE  SHIP. 
Fourth  Swnday  after  Epiphany. 

'*  The  ship  was  covered  with  the  waves." — Matthew  viii.  24. 

The  quieting  or  peace-making  power  of  Christ,  over- 
coming all  disorder,  is  what  we  feel  most  in  the  account 
of  the  stilling  of  the  storm  in  this  morning's  Gospel. 
There  was  a  short  vojage  across  Gennesaret,  after  a 
fatiguing  day  spent  by  Jesus  in  preaching  to  multitudes 
of  people  in  the  open  air  on  the  shore  of  the  lake. 
Everything  as  we  read  is  very  real.  Only  suppose  the 
whole  scene  transferred  to  waters  that  we  are  acquainted 
with, — bring  it  down  to  our  own  day, — let  it  be  known 
that  one  of  the  cloudy  tempests  that  sweep  through  our 
sky  had  been  stayed  instantly  and  dissolved  into  calm 
sunshine  at  the  command  of  a  living  voice, — and  you  will 
feel  in  a  measure  how  distance  and  time  are  apt  to  dull 
our  sense  even  to  the  grandest  realities.  When  we  look 
more  carefully  at  the  account,  there  are  touching  and 
beautiful  traits  of  a  natural  order,  making  us  conscious 
that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  actual  events,  and  not 
reading  a  fiction.  The  little  fishing-vessel  laboring  in 
the  waves  that  make  a  clean  breach  over  her  deck  ;  the 
human  frame  of  Jesus  asleep  in  the  midst  of  all  this 
trouble,  with  bodily  weariness  and  mental  peace;  the 
disciples,  who  are  themselves  the  ship's  company,  toiling 
and  tacking  as  long  as  they  can,  reluctant  to  disturb 


118  THE    SAVIOUR   IN   THE    SHIP. 

that  revered  and  beloved  sleeper,  but  driven  to  it  at  last 
bj  sheer  terror  and  desperation;  when  they  come  to 
their  "  wits'  end,"  the  Master's  serenity  and  authority  at 
waking,  and  then  the  most  natural  transition  in  their 
minds,  wlien  the  deliverance  is  over,  from  the  escape  itself 
to  the  mystery  and  marvel  of  the  rescue.  These  are  very 
impressive  introductory  aspects  of  the  miracle,  predis- 
posing us  to  treat  it  with  the  same  intellectual  honesty 
and  religious  reverence  that  we  find  in  the  story  itself, 
and  leading  us  along  into  a  deeper  opening  of  its  spirit- 
ual sense. 

Let  us  try  to  touch  this  spiritual  sense  now  only  at 
three  principal  points,  showing  how  they  are  connected 
with  each  other,  and  how  much  they  suggest  of  personal 
assistance  in  the  practical  difficulties  of  a  faithful  follow^ 
ing  of  Christ. 

1.  First,  then,  we  do  not  need  to  be  literally  at  sea, 
or  to  feel  waves  literally  breaking  over  our  heads,  to  find 
out  what  absolute  helplessness  is.  Most  men  will  allow 
that, — because  by  far  the  greater  number  of  us,  at  some 
time  in  our  lives,  have  known  what  it  was  to  touch  the 
last  limit  of  our  strength.  You  have  desired  something, 
supremely  perhaps,  and  having  put  out  all  your  ingenu- 
ity, all  your  persuasions  with  other  minds,  all  your  en- 
ergies, you  have  been  obliged  to  say,  "  That  is  the  bound 
of  my  ability ;  if  the  desired  thing  comes  now,  it  is  well, 
but  if  it  refuses  to  come  I  cannot  compel  it,  for  my 
power  is  spent."  You  have  dreaded  something,  and  for 
the  time  that  fear  excluded  every  other  evil  from  your 
view,  just  as  in  the  perspective  of  natural  objects  a 
small  shrub  close  to  your  eyes  will  hide  from  you  broad 
meadows  of  sunlight,  with  shining  streams  and  hills  of 
defence  beyond ;  but  every  possible  resistance  you  could 
bring  to  bear,  of  mind  and  body,  has  been  tried,  and 


THE   SAVIOUR   EN   THE   SHIP.  119 

you  stood  dismayed  at  the  thought  that  after  all,  in  spite 
of  this  struggle,  the  terrible  calamity  might  come.  One 
of  the  commonest  forms  of  this  exhaustion  of  human 
strength  is  in  the  struggle  with  disease  or  death,  ap- 
proaching yourself  or  some  one  you  love  like  a  part  of 
yourself.  Regimen,  travel,  medicine  and  surgery,  the 
finest  skill,  have  all  been  tried ;  and  lying  there,  weak 
and  wasting,  or  watching  over  the  dear  form  that  you 
want  to  clasp  and  hold  back  from  the  grave,  you  acknowl- 
edge that,  come  what  will,  your  part  in  the  issue  is  done. 
The  most  determined  characters  some  time  or  other 
reach  this  end.  Affection,  ambition,  vanity,  accumula- 
tion, the  mere  imitative  passion,  the  longing  of  worldly 
men  to  live  on  because  they  know  there  is  nothing  for 
them  afterward  —  all  are  spent.  The  powers  that  over- 
match us,  tire  us  out,  and  run  us  down,  are  various, — 
time,  hereditary  maladies,  sudden  sickness,  the  superior 
strength  of  other  people  serving  their  own  interests 
against  us,  that  formless  enemy,  never  so  seen  as  to  be 
struck,  but  often  "preventing"  us, —  that  we  call  "bad 
luck " ;  everything  that  hedges  about  our  inclinations, 
thwarts  our  plans,  baffles  the  brain  and  the  will,  and 
brings  us  up  where  we  wish  not  to  he.  Most  plainly  it 
is  a  part  of  God's  scheme  of  mercy  to  lead  us,  in  our 
self-confidence  and  self-will,  every  one  of  us,  to  just  that 
pointy  so  that  when  we  are  obliged  to  stop  trusting  or 
calculating  for  ourselves  we  shall  come  willingly  to  Him. 
Humiliating  as  the  fact  is,  it  is,  with  the  great  majority 
of  us,  only  when  we  are  pushed  on  to  that  sense  of 
impotence  that  either  reason  or  faith  so  wakes  up  in  us 
that  we  begin  to  cry,  as  we  ought  to  have  cried,  in  thank- 
ful confidence  and  devout  dependence  all  along,  to  our 
Lord.  God's  love  is  too  loving  to  let  us  alone.  We  would 
not  begin  right,  or  come  right,  in  prosperity  and  health 


120  THE   SAVIOUR   IN   THE    SHIP. 

and  youth ;  we  set  our  best  parts  against  the  Providence 
of  Life,  and  are  conquered.  We  would  not  grow  up 
Christians  in  the  Fold,  under  the  Shepherd's  hands,  and 
hence  the  Shepherd  lets  us  run  on  the  sharp  stones, 
the  barren  ledges  and  thorns  of  the  mountains,  till  we 
are  quite  certain  we  are  lost,  before  He  comes  after  us ; 
but  then  He  is  sure  to  come.  Hence,  as  we  see  in  all  the 
working  of  this  Divine  discipline  with  our  perversity, 
whatever  the  kind  of  storm  it  is  that  makes  us  confess  we 
can  do  nothing  more  for  ourselves,  but  are  empty  and 
forlorn  and  lost, —  it  is  just  that  confession  that  our  Lord 
wants  of  us.  We  say  we  are  full,  satisfied,  and  sufficient 
to  ourselves,  and  that  we  have  some  better  way  than 
God's  way ;  and  so  long  we  sail  straight  to  shipwreck. 
No  matter  what  the  shape  or  color  of  the  cloud  from 
which  the  tempest  breaks, —  it  is  the  searching  and 
awful  sense  of  the  desolation  of  sin  at  last, — it  is  the 
distress  of  a  conscience  afraid  to  think  of  God  except 
through  the  mediation  and  pardon  of  the  Cross ;  it  is  the 
startled  and  overwhelming  conviction  of  a  man's  conver- 
sion hour ;  it  is  the  simple  and  blessed  turning  from  the 
sinking  ship  of  nature,  that  the  storm  is  sent  to  create. 
David  felt  it  in  the  burning  agony  of  retribution  for  his 
transgressions  when  he  cried,  "All  Thy  billows  have 
gone  over  me;  deliver  me  out  of  the  deep  waters." 
Every  Christian  believer  that  has  had  a  new  heart  and  a 
right  spirit  created  in  him  has  come  to  it  and  tasted  of 
it.  The  ship  is  covered  with  the  waves;  nothing  left 
underneath  for  a  foothold, —  nothing  seen  overhead  to 
steer  by  or  to  hold  by, —  only  a  loose,  fickle,  slippery, 
fatal  element  all  around,  and  gaining  on  us.  The  heart, 
with  all  its  external,  traditional,  or  formal  knowledge  of 
the  Saviour,  may  hold  Him  as  if  He  were  asleep  in  its 
own  dark  chamber.     He  wakes,  to  us,  whenever  we  go 


THE    SAVIOUR   IN   THE   SHIP.  121 

to  Him  and  call  upon  Him.  And  they  are  the  reckless 
mariners  on  a  deeper  sea  who  put  the  waking  off,  on 
one  pretense  or  another,  till  the  ship  is  covered  with  the 
waves. 

2.  Observe  that  when,  at  last,  the  voyager  comes  sin- 
cerely and  anxiously  to  that,  and  utters  the  prayer, 
Christ  does  not  refuse  him  because  he  did  not  call  sooner, 
or  because  when  he  prayed  his  prayer  was  not  the  purest 
and  loftiest  of  prayers.  Hardly  any  heart's  prayer  is 
ihat^  when  it  is  first  agitated  under  the  flashing  convic- 
tion that  it  is  all  wrong.  While  its  deep  disorder  is  first 
discovered  it  can  think  only  of  being  delivered.  The 
Gospel  constantly  informs  us  of  waking  unbelievers  that 
they  ask,  "  What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  What  shall  I 
do  to  inherit  eternal  life  % "  just  like  these  half-spirit- 
ualized sailors  of  Galilee ;  "  Lord,  save  us,  we  perish." 
And  the  Gospel  approves  and  blesses  their  asking. 
When  they  have  gone  deeper  into  the  real  motives  of 
this  disinterested  religion,  and  have  drunk  more  deeply 
of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  himself,  their  petitions  will  rise 
to  loftier  ranges  of  spiritual  desire;  they  will  pray  for 
inward  purity  and  power,  for  more  perfect  sanctification, 
for  the  increase  of  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  for  others' 
welfare,  and  for  the  speeding  and  enlarging  of  Christ's 
kingdom.  At  present  this  patient  Intercessor  and 
Redeemer  accepts  the  crudest  supplication,  so  only  it 
comes  out  of  a  penitent,  contrite  heart,  and  is  directed 
to  Him.  This  is  enough.  He  wakes.  His  sleep  is  not 
like  other  sleep.  He  implies  that  during  that  physical 
slumber  an  Almighty  security  surrounded  Him  and 
went  out  from  Him,  so  that  no  harm  befell  the  ship,  even 
though  she  was  under  the  waves,  till  His  "  hour  "  was 
come.  Why  else  should  He  reprove  the  disciples  at  all  ? 
The  fault  was  that  there  was  so  much  alarm  mingled  with 


122  THE   SAVIOUR   IN  THE   SHIP. 

tlieir  belief  in  Him,  and  that  they  did  not  rest  content- 
edly in  the  trust  that  wherever  He  was  they  would  be 
safe.  He  saw  this  weakness ;  He  called  it  a  "  little 
faith."  But  He  does  not  denounce  it  as  no  faith  at  all ; 
nor  does  He  disdain  it  because  it  is  but  little.  Take  cour- 
age from  that,  you  that  are  conscious  of  having  turned 
to  your  Saviour,  and  yet  are  very  distrustful  whether 
you  have  so  turned  as  to  be  accepted  of  Him.  He  says, 
"  Why  are  ye  fearful."  But  He  does  not  say,  "  Ye  shall 
sink  and  perish  because  ye  are  fearful."  The  whole 
dealing  of  Christ  with  the  new  young  life  in  believing 
hearts  goes  on  this  gracious,  encouraging  principle.  He 
fosters  the  faintest  glow  of  faith.  He  cherishes  the 
nascent,  half-formed  purpose  of  obedience.  The  life  of 
•God  in  the  soul  of  man,  He  teaches,  is  always  a  growing 
thing,  and  so  by  necessit}^  must  be  imperfect  at  the 
beginning.  Christians  full  grown  at  their  Christian 
birth  are  as  rare  as  full  grown  scholars  or  philosphers  or 
athletes  or  soldiers  at  the  natural  birth,  or  corn  at  the 
planting.  The  germ  of  the  holy  life  actually  lodged 
and  alive  in  the  soul  is  the  essential  requirement  and 
test  of  a  disciple.  Is  the  prayer  earnest  ?  Does  it  come, 
even  though  it  stammers,  out  of  unfeigned  lips  ?  If  it 
does,  then  the  Lord  is  never  so  in  slumber  as  not  to  hear 
it,  or  so  unyielding  and  unpitying  as  to  turn  it  back. 
Christ  is  not  a  critic  on  the  soul's  frail  steps,  as  it  comes 
tottering  home  to  Him,  a  prodigal  from  the  far  country 
or  a  penitent  from  the  sinful  ways  of  the  city.  Every 
promise  of  His  Gospel  is  a  pledge  to  accept  sinners,  not 
after  they  have  ceased  to  he  sinners^ — for  when  would  that 
be  ? — but  while  yet  they  are  sinners.  This  is  the  glory 
of  the  Cross.  The  dying  is  for  the  ungodly.  The 
Physician  is  for  the  sick.  The  scarred  shoulders  of  the 
Shepherd  are  for  the  sheep  that  was  lost.     That  candle 


I 


THE   SAVIOUR   IN   THE   SHIP.  123 


of  the  Lord  that  is  lit  in  the  dark  house  of  the  world  is 
to  find  the  "  lost "  piece  of  silver.  He  saves  unto  the 
uttermost.  Every  one  that  asketh  receiveth  more  than 
he  asketh.  None  of  us  know  what  to  pray  for  as  we 
ought.  To  him  that  crieth  only  in  fear,  and  because  the 
weather  of  this  troublesome  world  is  too  much  for  him, 
the  sea  is  smoothed.  And  whosoever  so  cometh,  pro- 
vided only  it  is  to  the  Lord  that  he  directs  his  supplica- 
tion, shall  in  no  wise  be  cast  out. 

3.  But  we  should  miss  the  full  breadth  of  Gospel 
teaching  in  this  miracle  of  the  quieted  tempest  if  we 
saw  nothing  more  in  it  than  a  mere  figure  or  likeness  of 
what  goes  on  in  an  individual  heart.  The  whole  strain 
of  the  'New  Testament  teaches  us  a  profounder  doctrine 
than  this  of  the  connection  between  the  visible  world  of 
nature  and  the  invisible  world  of  God's  spiritual  king- 
dom. We  needed  to  know  what  the  Pagan,  the  Jew 
even,  and  many  a  student  of  science  born  and  bred  in 
Christendom  has  never  really  comprehended,  that  the 
Person  of  Jesus,  Son  of  God  and  Son  of  Man,  is  the 
actual  bond  of  a  living  unity  between  both  these  two 
great  realms  of  God's  creation;  that  He  mediates 
between  them  and  reconciles  them.  Scholars  will  never 
explore  nature  thoroughly,  or  right  Wisely,  till  they  see 
this  religious  signification  of  every  law,  every  force,  and 
every  particle  of  mattter,  and  explore  it  by  the  light  of 
faith.  God  is  in  everything  or  in  nothing, — in  lumps  of 
common  clay,  as  Ruskin  says,  and  in  drops  of  water,  as 
in  the  kindling  of  the  day-star,  and  in  the  lifting  of  the 
pillars  of  Heaven.  The  naturalists  of  antiquity  were  quite 
as  original  and  acute,  in  the  purely  intellectual  quality, 
as  the  moderns.  But  none  of  them,  of  any  nation,  ever 
really  grasped  this  doctrine  of  creation  till  Christ  revealed 
it.     It  is  the  Christian  conception  of   nature, — even 


124  THE   SAVIOUR   IN   THE   SHIP.  ^ 

thougli  many  men  who  have  the  knowledge  are  too  blind 
or  bigoted  in  their  theories  of  nature  to  admit  it.  The 
miracles  of  Jesus  in  Judea,  as  attestations  that  the  ele- 
ments of  nature  were  plastic  in  His  hands,  are  really  a 
new  key  to  the  grandest  scientific  principle  in  the  uni- 
verse,— which  is  that  God  lives  and  moves  and  acts  in 
all  of  nature,  every  instant,  and  that  the  whole  creation  is 
formed  and  guided  in  the  interest  of  the  spiritual  man, 
i.  e.,  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  the  earth.  This  world 
is  a  place  for  the  training  of  souls  in  a  Christian  immor- 
tality. All  its  laws  are  yet  to  serve  that  end.  Its  evils, 
sufferings,  disorders ;  its  blights  and  tempests  and  agonies, 
are  somehow  in  it, — we  know  not  how,  and  shall  not 
know  at  present,  because  it  is  the  residence  of  a  wrong- 
choosing,  falling,  and  sinning  race.  When  Jesus  of 
]S"azareth  took  our  flesh,  which  is  one  with  the  dust  of 
the  earth.  He  entered  on  the  stupendous  and  transcen- 
dent work  of  redeeming  not  men  only,  but  the  earth 
itself.  Man's  body  is  not  a  temporary  accident.  Every- 
thing material,  visible  and  tangible,  answers  to  something, 
expresses  something,  symbolizes  something,  in  the  soul 
and  its  spiritual  life,  as  it  is  hereafter  to  be  developed. 
Hence  Christ  must  be  Lord  of  life  and  death,  of  seas  and 
storms,  of  diseases  and  demons,  of  every  mystery  and 
might  and  secret  of  created  things.  "  The  winds  and 
the  sea  obey  Him."  The  whole  creation,  now  groaning 
and  travailing  in  pain  together,  waits  for  the  redemption, 
the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God.  The  estrange- 
ments even  of  dumb  creatures,  as  the  prophets  say,  in 
some  remote  Christian  age  are  to  partake  in  the  general 
reconciliation, — the  wolf  lying  down  with  the  lamb,  and 
the  young  lion  and  the  fatling  together,  and  a  little  child 
leading  them  in  peaceful  harmony.  This  individual 
soul  of  yours,  when  it  is  aroused  to  holy  life  because  the 


THE   SAVIOUR   IN   THE   SHIP.  125 

waters  have  gone  over  it,  and  cries  for  help,  and  is  for- 
given, is  not  left  a  solitary  thing,  struggling  alone  to  swim 
against  the  tide.  It  is  in  the  ship  with  the  Master.  It  is 
one  of  an  innumerable  company.  It  is  surrounded  with 
the  praises  of  the  Church  of  the  First-born.  It  belongs  to 
a  Christ  who  has  all  power  in  heaven  and  in  earth,  and 
whom  all  the  angels  of  God  worship. 

4.  Incomplete  still  would  this  enlarging  view  of  the 
miracle  be,  if  it  did  not  further  disclose  to  lis  the  true 
practical  use  both  of  the  Gospel  miracles  themselves,  and 
of  every  other  gift  and  blessing  of  Heaven,  in  leading  us 
up  in  aifectionate  gratitude  to  Him  who  stands  as  the 
central  figure  among  all  these  visible  wonders,  the  imper- 
sonation of  all  spiritual  beauty,  the  heart  of  all  holy  love, 
and  the  originator  of  all  the  peace-making  powers  which 
tranquillize  and  reconcile  the  turbulences  of  the  world. 
Whatever  other  and  more  abstract  or  general  truths  of 
the  spiritual  creation  these  supernatural  works  of  the 
E'ew  Testament  may  express,  it  is  plainest  and  most 
precious  of  all,  that  they  draw  believing  and  thankful 
hearts  to  the  Saviour  himself.  The  disciples,  you  see, 
did  not  selfishly  congratulate  themselves  on  their  escape, 
or,  with  the  impoverished  spirit,  the  thin  blood,  and 
niggardly  honor  of  modern  rationalism,  refer  their  relief 
to  the  laws  of  nature,  or  to  peculiarities  of  climate,  and 
so,  proud  of  their  sagacity,  make  for  the  port.  Their 
reverent  minds,  quickened  by  faith,  travelled  fast  from 
the  wonder  to  the  wonder-worker.  "The  men  mar- 
velled, saying,  What  manner  of  man  is  this ! "  It  was 
not  the  mercy  to  men's  imperilled  or  sick  bodies  that 
Christ  had  first  in  view  when  He  loosened  the  bodily 
ordinances  and  let  the  streams  of  Divine  energy  flow  in 
on  mortal  sufferers.  "  Tliat  ye  might  believe  in  me," — 
this  is  the  continual  explanation, — we  might  almost  say 


126  THE   SAVIOUR   IN   THE  SHIP. 

the  excuse,  He  offered  for  deeds  that  must  necessarily 
be  exceptional  and  temporary.  I  have  heard  Christians 
with  the  doubting  temperament  of  St.  Thomas,  slow  but 
desirous  to  believe,  avow  their  wish  that  miracles  could 
come  to  confirm  and  satisfy  them  now  ;  and  I  have  heard 
others,  easier  to  believe,  express  'their  expectation  that 
they  would  come  again,  in  some  new  supernatural  cycle 
of  the  Church.  All  that  miraculous  treasure  of  Christ 
is  ours,  not  only  by  certified  history,  as  undeniable  fact, 
but  because  in  having  Him  we  have  all  the  benefit  and 
blessing  of  His  supernatural  life  included.  The  wonders 
fulfilled  their  office  when  they  gained  men's  ears  and 
hearts  for  their  Redeemer.  He  living  in  our  hearts  by 
faith,  we  can  dispense  with  the  rest  as  but  the  transient 
vehicle  of  His  grace.  Feeding  on  Him,  dying  with  Him, 
at  liberty  with  His  freedom,  walking  daily  in  His  light, 
forgiven  through  His  mediation,  enriched  and  sanctified 
by  His  intercession, — what  can  the  brave  and  true  Chris- 
tian need  more  ?  The  tranquillity  will  be  like  that  of  the 
sea  when  the  storm  had  been  subdued, — not  a  dead  or 
stagnant  "  calm,"  but,  as  the  same  original  word  signifies 
in  Homer's  Epic  Greek,  the  rippling  calm  that  laughs, 
because  it  moves  and  makes  music  and  catches  all  the 
light  of  heaven.  If  the  Saviour  of  us  from  our  sins  into 
everlasting  life  "giveth  peace,  who  then  can  make 
trouble?" 

Augustine,  of  the  fourth  century,  who  knew  as  well 
as  most  men  what  the  storms  of  temptation  are,  and  bet- 
ter than  most  men  what  the  deliverance  is,  and  by  "Whom 
the  victory  comes,  often  in  his  writings  refers  to  this  pas- 
sage of  the  evangelist,  and  those  psalms,  like  the  forty- 
sixth  and  ninety-third  and  one  hundred  and  seventh, 
where  we  almost  seem  to  hear  the  roaring  of  the  waters 
and  the  voice  of  God  above  them.     In  one  of  these  he 


I 


THE   SAVIOrE  m  THE   SHIP.  127 

sums  up  the  practical  application  of  tlie  miracle  in  lan- 
guage that  cannot  be  bettered  :  "  "We  are  sailing  in  this  life 
as  through  a  sea,  and  the  wind  rises,  and  storms  of  tempta- 
tion are  not  wanting.  "Whence  is  this,  save  because 
Jesus  is  sleeping  in  thee  ?  If  He  were  not  sleeping  in 
thee  thou  wouldst  have  calm  within.  But  what  means 
this,  that  Jesus  is  sleeping  in  thee,  save  that  thy  faith, 
which  is  from  Jesus,  is  slumbering  in  thine  heart  ?  What 
shalt  thou  do  to  be  delivered  ?  Arouse  Him  and  say, 
Master,  we  perish.  He  will  awaken ;  that  is,  thy  faith 
will  return  to  thee  and  abide  with  thee  always.  When 
Christ  is  awakened,  though  the  tempest  heat  into  yet  it 
will  not  fill  thy  ship ;  thy  faith  will  now  command  the 
winds  and  the  waves,  and  the  danger  will  be  over." 


TWO  AE"D  TWO  BEFOKE  HIS  FACE. 

Fifth  BundoAf  after  Ejpij^hany, 

"Aptee  these  things  the  Lord  appointed  other  seventy  also,  and 
sent  them  two  and  two  before  His  face  into  every  city  and  place, 
whither  He  himself  would  come." — St.  Luke  x.  1. 

It  is  remarkable  how  little  stress  has  been  laid  on  this 
statement.  There  have  been  a  few  conjectures,  among 
scholars,  that  one  or  another  of  the  historic  men  whose 
early  confession  of  the  Faith  gave  their  names  a  place  in 
the  Christian  records  was  among  these  "  seventy."  But 
we  really  are  told  about  any  of  them  only  two  things, — 
their  errand,  and  the  fact  that  they  were  held  worthy, 
through  their  prompt  and  obedient  discipleship  to  the 
Master,  to  be  made  forerunners  of  His  own  ministry. 
From  Jerusalem  eastward  beyond  Jordan,  and  so  up  to 
Bethsaida, — from  Nazareth  west  to  the  coasts  of  Tyre 
and  across  through  Samaria, — ^might  be  seen  these  pairs 
of  pilgrims,  bound  on  a  mysterious  march,  eager,  solemn, 
urgent,  as  if  the  spell  of  another  world  was  on  their 
spirits ; — this  is  all  we  know. 

Yet  questions  of  high  interest  immediately  arise. 
Why  should  there  he  any  forerunners?  What  were 
they  sent  to  do?  How  were  they  received  by  their 
countrymen  where  they  came  ?  And  what  were  the  after 
fortunes  of  their  lives?  Silent  as  the  narrative  is  on 
points  like  these,  there  are  indicated  in  the  single  sen- 


TWO   AND  TWO   BEFORE   HIS   FACE.  129 

tence  which  mentions  the  incident  two  or  three  princi- 
ples of  the  Christian  life,  in  the  world  and  in  man,  of 
great  practical  power.  He  "sent  them  two  and  two 
before  His  face  into  every  place  whither  He  himself 
would  come." 

In  order  to  the  full  personal  influence  and  reign  of 
Christ  anywhere,  there  is  a  law  of  necessary  preparation. 
Yery  impressive  it  is  to  see  that  God,  when  He  has  any 
great  gift  to  communicate,  proceeds  by  prearrange- 
ment.  He  never  bursts  into  His  family  with  thunders 
of  revelation  too  sudden  or  loud  for  them  to  bear.  Take 
the  one  signal  event  which  stands  in  the  centre  of  all 
history, — the  personal  coming  of  the  Son  of  God  on  the 
earth.  In  one  sense,  to  be  sure.  His  birth  was  a  surprise ; 
the  dull  mind  of  the  lodgers  at  the.  Bethlehem  tavern, 
and  of  the  peasants  at  Nazareth,  was  not  looking  for  Him 
in  the  place  and  fashion  of  His  actual  appearance.  But 
Simeon  and  Anna  in  the  Temple  were  ready  for  Him. 
The  prophetic  spirit  of  His  nation  had  been  looking  out 
for  Him,  as  nightly  watchers  on  Mount  Moriah  looked 
out  for  the  dawn  toward  Hebron,  two  thousand  years. 
A  group  of  magi  from  the  far  East,  without  Bible  or 
Hebrew  tradition  or  Mosaic  monuments,  were  expecting 
Him,  earnestly  enough  to  travel  a  long  way  by  a  strange 
road  to  find  Him.  Herod  was  not  surprised, — fore- 
knowing Him  by  that  presentiment  of  alarm  with 
which  unrighteous  kings  always  dread  prophets.  Every 
student  who  reads  below  the  surface  of  the  letter  under- 
stands that  the  whole  course  of  Eastern  empire  and  emi- 
gration, from  the  patriarchs,  as  much  as  the  literal  pre- 
dictions of  Jacob  or  Isaiah,  was  a  making  ready  for  just 
that  spiritual  revolution  which  came  embodied  in  the 
Galilean  carpenter,  the  Desire  of  all  nations,  the  Ever- 
lasting King.     From  the  very  beginning  He  was  sending 


130  TWO   AND   TWO   BEFORE   HIS   FACE. 

out,  along  the  highways  of  ages,  voices,  two  and  two, 
of  herald  and  psalm,  of  priesthood  and  commandments, 
6f  awakened  conscience  and  struggling  faith,  of  failing 
virtue  and  falling  thrones,  into  the  places  whither  He 
himself  would  come. 

There  is  a  wider  view  of  history,  and  of  God's  majes- 
tic purposes  in  it,  still.  To  narrow  and  jealous  inter- 
preters it  used  to  appear  to  be  somehow  a  slight  upon 
the  Scriptures  to  suppose  that  the  Almighty  took  other 
nations  besides  the  Jews  into  His  design,  or  that  He 
illuminated  Gentile  seers  and  sages  to  catch  any  glimpses 
of  the  Gospel.  But  Scripture  itself  is  bound  by  no  such 
exclusive  rule.  It  sees  religion  beyond  the  bounds  of 
Judea.  It  honors  Melchisedec's  devotion  and  Balaam's 
vision  of  the  Christian  Star  rising  out  of  Jacob,  and 
celebrates  the  adoration  of  the  wise  men,  and  welcomes 
the  ships  of  Tarshish,  the  dromedaries  of  Midian  and 
Ephah,  the  outstretched  hands  of  Ethiopia.  Christian 
scholarship  in  later  years,  rising  to  loftier  conceptions  of 
the  Christly  providence  and  the  Divine  philosophy  in 
history,  discovers  proofs  that,  long  before  Mary  took  her 
way  to  the  feast,  or  laid  Jesus  in  the  manger,  there  were 
great  converging  lines  of  thought  and  life  pointing  to 
that  wonderful  nativity.  On  the  purer  pages  of  both 
Greek  and  Latin  literature  there  are  guesses  of  an 
Evangelic  future;  there  are  ideas  working  out  from 
men's  minds  under  the  breath  of  the  all-inspiring  Spirit, 
preparing  the  way  for  the  reconciliation  of  Calvary,  for 
the  brotherhood  of  the  race,  for  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  for  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan,  for  the 
missionary  journeys  of  St.  Paul.  Over  the  plains  of 
Syria,  along  the  sea-coasts  of  the  Mediterranean,  in  the 
northern  forests,  tribes  and  their  captains  were  moving, 
thrones  were  put  down  and  set  up,  armies  were  gathered 


TWO   AND   TWO   BEFORE   HIS   FACE,  131 

and  dispersed, — the  miglity  leaders  themselves  not  con- 
scious for  what  King  of  kings  they  were  opening  a  path, 
but  all  shaping  the  face  of  the  earth  for  His  kingdom. 
Literally,  Caesar's  legions  were  building  roads  out  from 
Italy  to  every  quarter  of  the  compass,  not  more  for  the 
Pretorian  eagles  to  pass  than  for  the  apostles  and  wit- 
nesses of  the  Cross.  Alexandria  laid  the  keels  and 
spread  the  sails  of  her  galleys  for  a  better  freight  than 
she  knew, — for  the  message  of  love  on  earth,  good  will  to 
East  and  West,  and  glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  out 
to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules.  The  Athenians,  through 
period  after  period,  in  the  exquisite  culture  of  their  per- 
fect tongue,  were  producing  a  language  for  the  truth  as 
it  is  in  Jesus  to  proclaim  its  glad  tidings  in,  from  the 
Granges  to  the  Danube.  Eoman  jurisprudence,  by  its 
skilful  statutes  and  admirable  discipline,  quite  as  much 
as  military  conquests,  was  familiarizing  courts  and  sen- 
ates and  thinkers  with  the  idea  of  universal  law.  In 
fact,  to  eyes  that  see  the  divinity  in  the  Saviour's  face 
at  all  it  is  not  difficult  to  discern,  all  along  those  earlier 
ages,  heralds  like  "  the  other  seventy  also,"  going  before 
that  Face  into  the  places  whither  He  himself  was  after- 
ward to  come. 

Now,  on  that  great  scale  of  time  and  space  we  have  a 
picture,  in  colossal  proportions,  of  what  goes  on  in  every 
one  of  our  own  breasts.  Conscious  of  it  or  not,  agencies 
are  at  work  in  us  to  make  ready,  if  we  only  will,  for  the 
entrance  of  the  Lord  of  the  heart  into  His  home  and 
dwelling-place  there.  Having  created  us  for  Christian 
service,  as  the  true  end  and  real  glory  of  our  being,  our 
Father  takes  pains  to  fit  and  to  fashion  us  for  that 
destiny,  with  all  its  honor  and  all  its  joy.  By  secret 
influences,  untraceable  as  the  wind  that  bloweth  where 
it  listeth,  silently  pressing  on  the  springs  of  feeling  and 


132  TWO   AND   TWO   BEFORE   HIS   FACE. 

principle  within  us;  by  strange  sorrows  and  misgivings 
there  ;  bj  hours  of  uneasiness  not  explained ;  by  sharp 
twinges  of  conscience ;  by  open  providences,  prosperous 
or  painful,  so  plain  that  he  who  runs,  in  the  busiest 
habits,  can  read  their  meaning,  and  even  the  wayfaring 
fool  can  hardly  miss  it ;  by  letting  us  have  what  w^e 
want,  to  encourage  or  to  shame  us ;  by  taking  away  what 
we  love  too  well,  or  love  falsely,  that  we  may  become 
wise  and  strong  and  pure  in  our  grief, — this  process  of 
personal  preparation  is  in  continual  operation.  The 
heralds  are  out,  sent  by  Him  who  is  coming  after  them. 
The  "  other  seventy  "  are  proceeding  on  their  errand. 
"We  ourselves  are  the  cities  and  places  whither  He  would 
come.  He  wants  us,  and  He  would  have  us  want  Him. 
He  has  named  us,  one  by  one,  to  the  messengers.  He 
has  marked  each  heart,  as  He  did  the  chamber  in  the  city 
by  the  man  bearing  a  pitcher  of  water  where  He  would 
have  the  disciples  "  make  ready  the  passover."  This  is 
the  Divine  reality  of  our  human  life,  and  it  throws  over 
its  common  things  one  of  their  tenderest  and  most 
earnest  aspects.  Nothing  is  separate  from  this  blessed 
plan ;  and  so  nothing  is  insignificant.  Even  the  com- 
monplaces, in  God's  view,  however  it  may  be  with  ours, 
are  parts  of  the  formation  of  character.  They  are 
always  teaching  what  manner  of  persons  we  ought  to  be. 
The  voice  of  the  wilderness  rings  through  them, — "  Pre- 
pare ye  the  Lord's  way."  He  knows  of  each  one  whether 
the  door  is  open  or  shut.  And  by  one  touch  or  another 
He  will  open  it,  unless  we  would  rather  die  than  live. 

All  our  approaches  to  full  religious  truth,  to  spiritual 
power,  or  holiness,  or  peace,  are  gradual.  The  best  are  not 
hest  at  once^  any  more  than  the  very  bad  are  worst  at  once. 
The  towns  and  cottages  of  Palestine  must  hear  a  little 
about  the  Messiah  before  they  saw  Him,  and  get  used  at 


TWO   AND  TWO   BEFOEE   HIS   FACE.  133 

least  to  His  name.  "  Is  not  this  He  that  should  come  ? " 
IN'ot  Elias,  not  one  of  the  old  prophets, — but  everybody's 
Friend,  the  Saviour  of  publicans  and  laboring  men,  of 
sinning  women,  and  of  the  little  child.  Were  our  ears 
open,  we  should  hear  about  Him  in  other  voices  than 
those  of  sermons.  Childish  instruction  is  one  of  them, 
including  all  the  little  morsels  of  Christian  knowledge 
that  are  scattered  in  the  houses  of  the  people.  Many  of 
them  are  but  crude  and  broken  bits  ;  the  information  is 
scanty  and  one-sided ;  it  is  mixed  with  false  theories  and 
mistaken  impressions ;  but  there  it  is, — some  precept  about 
prayer,  some  fragment  of  the  Kew  Testament  narrative, 
some  text  committed  to  memory,  some  names  of  saints, 
some  verses  of  a  hymn.  Even  in  households  not  very 
religious,  or  in  streets,  or  in  secular  schools,  these  crumbs 
of  the  sacred  Bread  of  Life  are  dropped ;  and  they  help 
to  prepare  the  way.  The  children  cry  in  the  market- 
place, "  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David  ! "  and  they  may 
be  the  more  glad  to  greet  Him  and  sit  at  His  feet  after- 
ward. Sunday-school  teaching,  imperfect  as  it  is, 
goes  before  the  face  of  Christ,  and  that  is  a  reason  why 
it  ought  to  be  more  carefully  and  thoroughly  done.  If 
there  is  too  little  of  Christ  himself  there,  there  are  at 
least  His  promises.  His  gifts.  His  praises  from  young 
lips,  and  knees  bent  to  Him.  All  habits  of  daily  devotion 
are  a  preparation  for  Christ.  He  may  not  be  faithfully 
received,  or  confessed,  or  followed ;  yet  the  practice  of 
saying  something  often  to  God,  "  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord,"  keeps  a  private  by-path  where  His  holy  feet 
may  walk  at  any  time,  in  some  season  of  penitence,  or 
agony,  or  under  the  shadow  of  a  cross.  So  it  is  with 
morality.  It  is  not  always  Christian  morality.  The 
flavor  of  the  passion-flower,  the  sweetness  of  humility, 
the  strength  and  sanctity  of  faith,  may  not  be  in  it. 


134  TWO   AND  TWO  BEFORE   HIS   FACE. 

There  is  a  morality  that  is  hard,  proud,  bitter,  self- 
approving.  Men  may  do  right  from  wrong  motives, — be 
honest  from  policy,  or  amiable  for  favor,  or  liberal  for 
popularity,  and  even  austerely  just  in  a  kind  of  haughty 
ambition  to  do  as  well  without  religion  as  Christians  do 
with  it.  But,  generally,  right  living  is  akin  to  righteous 
living.  Zaccheus  was  the  better  pupil  to  Jesus  for  his 
obedience.  The  stern  moralists  of  antiquity,  Marcus 
Aurelius,  Seneca,  Socrates,  would  doubtless  have  wel- 
comed the  Son  of  Man  from  Galilee  if  they  had  seen 
Him.  And  therefore,  along  with  a  right  education  goes 
a  correct  ordering  of  conduct,  the  two  casting  up  a 
causeway,  through  miry  grounds,  for  the  spiritual  sov- 
ereign of  the  soul. 

Again,  it  appears  from  the  Lord's  sending  of  the 
seventy  that  all  personal  efforts  and  public  movements 
for  extending  truth  and  increasing  righteousness  in  the 
world  are  really  parts  of  His  work,  and  are  dependent 
on  His  spiritual  power.  Christendom  everywhere  is  full 
of  beneficent  activities.  They  are  philanthropic,  edu- 
cational, sanitary,  reformatory,  missionary.  Sometimes 
they  scarcely  recognize,  and  oftener  they  fail  to  praise, 
wdth  explicit  and  conscious  gratitude,  the  Great  Fountain 
from  which  they  spring,  and  the  ever-present  Leader 
who  inspires  and  sends  them.  So  much  the  worse  for 
their  vitality  and  their  honor  if  they  do.  But  none  the 
less  are  they  the  merciful  emanations  of  the  one  great 
central,  mighty,  and  missionary  Heart  which  has  brought 
the  love  of  heaven  into  the  dwellings  of  men.  'No 
matter  where  you  find  them,  or  what  human  agents 
started  them,  or  what  particular  form  of  good  they  aim 
at,  they  are  none  the  less,  in  their  first  origin,  products 
of  the  one  great  healing  and  loving  plan, — just  as  the 
million  shapes  of  organization  in  the  forests  and  flora  of 


TWO    AND   TWO   BEFORE    HIS    FACE.  135 

vegetable  nature  spring  and  bloom  and  bear  fruit  from 
a  single  living  principle  at  the  heart  of  the  universe. 
The  grandest  result  of  modern  scientific  discovery  and 
scholarly  thought  is  the  growing  conviction  of  a  uni- 
fication of  forces  : — all  the  infinite  variety  of  shape  and 
color  and  odor,  of  leaf  and  blossom  and  stalk,  flowing 
from  one  Head,  in  one  shoreless  stream,  under  one  all- 
including  Law.  The  spiritual  creation  is  not  less 
orderly,  or  less  at  unity  in  itself,  than  the  material. 
"  Master,  we  saw  one  casting  out  devils  in  Thy  name, 
and  he  folio weth  not  us;  and  we  forbad  him."  But 
Jesus  said,  "  Forbid  him  not,  for  there  is  no  man  which 
shall  do  a  miracle  in  My  name  that  can  lightly  speak 
evil  of  Me.  For  he  that  is  not  against  us  is  on  our 
part."  "  Whosoever  receiveth  a  child  in  My  name,  re- 
ceiveth  Me  " :  and  the  ignorant  and  the  heathen  and  the 
poor  are  children.  "  Whosoever  shall  give  you  a  cup  to 
drink  in  My  name  shall  not  lose  his  reward " :  and 
healthy  tenements,  or  temperance,  or  bathing-houses,  or 
schools,  or  hospital  care,  or  flower-missions  in  cities,  are 
cups  of  water.  "  Wisdom  is  justified  of  all  her  chil- 
dren." "  He  that  keepeth  My  commandments,  he  it  is 
that  loveth  Me."  "  All  souls  are  Mine."  The  benefac- 
tions of  this  late  age,  half-blind  though  they  may  be,  or 
forgetful  of  their  Author,  were  born  at  Bethlehem,  and 
grew  in  stature  at  Nazareth,  and  conquered  their 
enemies, — selfishness  and  pride  and  wrath, — at  Calvary, 
and  went  out  among  the  nations  with  the  apostles.  If 
we  had  seen  one  of  the  seventy  walking  in  some  by-way 
of  Jericho  or  Bethany,  we  might  have  seen  no  badge  of 
Christ  upon  him,  and  wondered  at  his  eager  gait  or 
absorbed  expression.  But  he  was  going  where  the 
Master  sent  him,  and  the  Master's  mantle  was  on  him, 
and  the  Master's  secret  in  his  soul.     Thither,  after  him, 


136  TWO   AND   TWO   BEFOEE    HIS   FACE. 

tlie  Master  himself  would  come, — to  reaffirm  and  fulfil 
His  words, — to  deepen,  sanction,  complete  His  work. 
Large  or  small,  these  forerunners  run  over  the  earth, — 
from  Zion  to  Damascus  and  to  Spain,  from  London  to 
Cape  Town  and  Japan,  from  the  New  York  Bible  House 
to  Mexico  and  Oregon.  One  Sender  sends  them.  One 
Keaper  and  Ingatherer  and  Finisher  follows  them.  He 
is  the  Alpha,  beginning  them, — the  Omega  who  will 
end  them.  They  began  in  His  charity.  They  will  end 
in  His  righteousness  His  grace  conceived  them — every 
one.  His  mediation  holds  them  up.  His  glory  will 
crown  them,  in  His  own  good  time.  The  many-handed 
Church  Missionary  Society  of  Great  Britain,  with  its 
million  dollars  a  year,  and  the  little  "  auxiliary  "  of  a  few 
quiet  women  in  a  rural  parish,  are  branches  of  one  tree, 
drawing  their  life  from  one  root,  yielding  for  that 
patient  Planter  who  will  come  "  seeking  fruit." 

And  on  Him  they  all  depend.  Underneath  their 
roots,  and  filling  every  pore  with  the  sweet  stream  that 
nourishes  each  fibre.  He  is  over  them  as  well,  watching 
and  tending  and  watering,  and  lifting  the  boughs  into 
air  and  light.  Without  Him  they  can  do  nothing,  as 
without  His  creation  they  could  not  have  been.  Unless 
they  cut  themselves  ofi", — severing  the  secret  channels  by 
unbelief,  by  headstrong  self-will,  by  a  quarrelsome  and 
alien  temper,  by  the  bitterness  of  a  radical  rejection  of 
Him,— He  feeds  their  springs.  That  is  the  wonder  and 
the  beauty  of  the  love.  So  much  does  He  care  for  the 
whole  flock,  that  He  will  let  shepherds  almost  as  simple 
as  the  sheep  go  after  them, — to  lead  some,  to  drive 
others.  So  much  does  He  long  to  draw  souls  in,  that 
He  opens  gates  in  all  the  walls,  on  the  four  sides  of  the 
city,  which  lies  four-square  to  all  the  points  of  the  com- 
pass,— the  city  of  holiness   and  rest.     He  never  shuts 


k 


TWO   AND   TWO   BEFORE   HIS   FACE.  137 

tliem.  If  tliey  ever  seem  "  strait,"  and  the  way  to  tliem 
"narrow,"  it  is  only  because,  without  obedience  and  a 
likeness  to  the  self-denying  Lord  of  the  place,  they  that 
enter  would  not  be  at  home  there,  but  uneasy  prisoners 
at  the  court  of  a  goodness  which  judges  them.  His 
heavenly  economy  is  not  to  bar  out  but  to  invite  in. 
He  suffers  ten  thousand  stammering  tongues,  of  scanty 
wisdom,  to  teach  and  preach  Him,  if  only  they  will 
heartily  repeat  His  name.  If  there  are  not  ordained  and 
official  hands  to  baptize  new-born  children  into  His 
family,  they  shall  not  be  left  outasts  and  homeless  for 
want  of  outward  and  inward  water,  and  a  welcome. 
"  The  Son  of  Man  is  not  come  to  destroy  men's  lives, 
but  to  save  them." 

How  plain  it  is,  then,  that  all  our  exertions  to  do  good 
to  our  fellow-men,  or  to  ourselves,  are  strong  and  effect- 
ive exactly  in  proportion  as  we  keep  them  in  direct  con- 
nection with  Christ.  Do  you  inquire  how?  By  our 
inward  feeling;  by  the  outward  confession,  and  the 
continual  thanksgiving,  and  the  sacramental  memorial ; 
by  carrying  requests  to  Him ;  by  marking  the  signs  of 
His  guiding  will  and  following  them,  though  they  cross 
interests  or  break  up  projects  of  our  own ;  by  managing 
and  deliberating  and  administering,  working  alone  or 
working  in  societies,  in  His  Spirit;  by  thinking  of 
Him  in  our  work,  reverently  and  affectionately.  Where- 
ever  they  went,  in  mountain  passes,  or  river  jungles,  or 
lonely  deserts,  among  robbers,  among  Pharisees,  among 
serpents,  do  you  suppose  the  seventy  ever  forgot  the 
voice,  the  face,  or  the  blessing  of  Him  who  said  to 
them,  "  Go  ye,  hefore  Me  "  f  Their  knees  would  have 
trembled,  their  hearts  would  have  sunk  in  them,  many 
a  time,  if  they  had.  Whether  we  try  to  convert  the 
heathen,  or  to  Christianize  our  western  barbarians,  or  to 


138  TWO   AND  TWO  BEFORE   HIS   FACE. 

build  cliiirches,  or  to  reclaim  in  our  Christian  communi- 
ties "  such  as  neglect  so  great  salvation,"  or  to  train  the 
young,  or  to  nurse  the  sick,  or  to  employ  the  idle,  or  to 
house  and  clothe  orphanage  and  old  age, — it  is  not  only 
true  that  "  without  Him  we  can  do  nothing  " ;  it  is  just 
as  true  that  in  the  degree  of  our  conscious  and  willing 
and  loving  memory  of  Him  we  prosper  and  prevail.  As 
we  are  in  communion  with  Him,  He  strengthens  us.  As 
His  name  and  creed  are  on  our  lips,  His  mark  on  our 
foreheads,  our  knees  bent  to  Him,  we  prepare  His  way. 
He  comes  after  us,  and  comes  up  with  us,  and  we  walk 
with  Him,  and  the  bread  is  broken,  and  our  eyes  are 
opened  to  the  vision  of  Him,  and  we  feast  with  Him, 
and  with  His  Father,  who  is  our  Father,  and  They 
with  us.  His  kingdom  comes  in  Him,  from  Him,  and 
round  about  Him,  and  abides  with  Him  wherever  He  is. 
This  leads  on  to  the  final  truth.  When  the  spiritual 
life  unfolds  into  its  real  freedom  and  practical  energy, 
the  character  it  presents  is  a  Christlike  character.  The 
moment  we  see  it,  we  see  not  only  its  beauty  and  useful- 
ness but  its  source.  The  stamp  of  its  authorship  is  upon 
it.  However  rude,  imperfect,  immature  the  earlier 
forms  of  religious  life  may  be,  as  surely  as  they  grow 
and  ripen  there  comes  out  in  them  the  likeness  of  the. 
perfect  Pattern  of  them  all.  Many  failures  and  rough 
outlines  at  first ;  not  much  else  but  sincere  longings, 
penitent  resolves,  half-discouraged  struggles  to  worry 
through  the  daily  fight  and  break  down  the  old  selfish 
or  sensual  habit.  Amendment  is  slow ;  the  record  only 
a  little  better  to-day  than  yesterday;  some*  back- 
slidings,  very  likely ;  timid  faith  asking  "  where  is  the 
promise  of  His  coming";  Peter  sinking  in  the  waves  as 
the  wind  rises ;  and  half-pagan  Christian  neighbors  look- 
ing on  with  little  hope  and  less  cheer.     But  what  then  ? 


TWO   AND  TWO  BEFORE   HIS   FACE.  189 

Always  the  herald  must  be  less  than  the  king.  Prepar- 
ation is  not  perfection,  nor  is  seed-time  the  harvest,  nor 
is  John  calling  down  fire  on  Samaritans  the  John  on 
the  Lord's  breast  at  the  Last  Supper.  First  the  blade ; 
then  the  ear ;  after  that  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  Only 
make  sure  that  the  seed-corn  is  the  genuine  grain ;  that 
the  tillage  goes  on ;  that  the  blade  is  nurtured,  and  the 
weeds  are  killed.  Then  the  full  corn  will  be  Christ's  life 
again.  Is  the  true  quality  here  in  the  germ, — the  bap- 
tism of  the  Spirit, — the  new  creature's  breath  and 
blood, — the  love  and  longing  for  God,  however  feeble 
or  faint?  Then  take  care  of  it.  Your  business  is  to 
water  and  feed  it, — and,  if  need  be,  to  fight  for  it.  The 
Church's  business  is  to  train  it ;  she  is  its  nursing-mother ;' 
the  entire  system  of  her  ministrations  is  a  divine  ar- 
rangement and  provision  for  it ;  her  christening  Christ- 
ens it ;  her  confirmation  confirms  it ;  her  adoring  prayers 
hold  it  up  to  the  light  of  the  Lord's  countenance ;  her 
teaching  gives  it  body  and  soundness ;  her  Church  work 
makes  sinew  and  nerve  and  hardness  for  it;  her  Eucha- 
rist satisfies  and  renews  it;  her  hymns  invigorate  its 
aspiration,  making  it  rise  like  the  wings  of  the  eagle. 
But,  in  all  Christ  must  be,  or  there  is  nothing.  To 
Him  it  must  all  tend  and  work  in  the  heart,  or  it  works 
to  vanity.  Christ  begins  and  finishes  its  glorious  circle 
of  seven-fold  light  and  grace  in  personal  lives.  When 
we  speak  of  the  kingdom,  it  is  only  the  society  of  Christ's 
men,  the  complete  and  brotherly  body  of  living  souls, 
alive  in  Him.  That  only  is  the  Church  that  rfses,  and 
makes  Gentiles  see  the  brightness  of  its  rising,  and  brings 
sons  from  far,  and  nurses  daughters  at  its  side,  and  gathers 
gold  and  incense  from  east  and  west,  and  doves  of  the 
air  to  its  windows, — its  gates  not  shut  day  nor  night, 
and  glorified  with  the  glory  of  the  Holy  One. 


140  TWO   AND   TWO   BEFORE   HIS   FACE. 

Who  He  is  you  know.  All  better  things,  of  desire 
and  purpose,  in  the  heart  point  to  Him  and  prophesy 
Him.  Seventy  times  seven  messengers,  in  these  Chris- 
tian ages,  go  before  Him.  Our  repentance  is  comforted 
by  His  forgiveness.  Every  step  is  made  safe  and  steady 
by  His  hand.  The  whole  course  and  order  look  to 
Him, — "  Path,  motive,  guide,  original,  and  end." 

Men  of  our  time  think  they  see  a  grander  future  in 
store  for  the  people,  and  for  the  world.  They  are  right, 
if  they  look  for  an  age  of  greater  nearness  to  the  Son 
of  Man.  The  heralds  go  out.  Commerce,  science, 
discovery,  education,  nature  interpreted,  sea  and  sky 
and  land  comprehended,  humanity  awakened,  the  uni- 
verse explored,  every  law  traced, — these  are  messen- 
gers that  will  not  only  foresee  but  help  bring  in  the 
millennium  they  predict,  if  they  labor  and  move  to- 
gether in  the  faith  of  the  great  reconciliation,  for  the 
righteousness  and  peace,  for  the  love  and  purity  of  God. 
For  then  these  are  manifestations  of  the  kingdom  of 
His  Son.    Is  that  kingdom  within  you  ? 


INSTAITT  OBEDIENCE. 

Sixth  SundoAj  after  Epiphcmy, 

"  His  mother  saith  unto  the  servants,  Whatsoever  He  saith  until 
you,  do  it."— >S'^.  John  ii.  5. 

The  riglit  path  into  the  meaning  of  this  saying, 
found  in  one  of  the  Epiphany  "  Gospels,"  lies  through 
the  scene  where  it  was  spoken,  or  rather  it  is  found 
in  an  interior  view  of  the  three  states  of  mind  repre- 
sented in  the  little  group  at  the  wedding: — that  of 
Mary,  who  speaks;  of  the  servants,  to  whom  she 
speaks ;  and  of  the  Saviour,  for  whose  decisive  word  she 
and  they  are  waiting. 

On  the  part  of  Mary,  the  mother  of  the  Lord,  there 
was  evidently  a  mixture  of  perplexity,  impatience,  rev- 
erence, and  trust.  The  impatience,  betrayed  a  moment 
before,  in  her  anxiety  that  her  Son  should  interfere  to 
relieve  the  embarrassed  host, — who  is  conjectured  to 
have  been  a  relative  of  her  own  family, — an  anxiety 
heightened  very  probably  by  a  little  natural  pride  in  the 
indications  of  extraordinary  wisdom  and  authority  al- 
ready apparent  in  Jesus, — had  been  sufficiently  reproved 
and  restrained.  His  "  Woman,  what  have  I  to  do  with 
thee  ? "  (more  exactly  rendered,  What  is  there  in  com- 
mon between  Me  and  thee  ? )  had  produced  the  intended 
effect:  dispelling  her  rising  complacency,  and  placing 
her  on  that  level  of  ordinary  human  dependence  where, 


142  INSTANT   OBEDIENCE. 

with  all  tlie  loveliness  and  beauty  of  her  character  and 
the  sanctity  of  her  maternal  relation  to  the  human 
nature  in  Christ,  she  must  ever  remain.  Nothing  but 
an  utterly  baseless  superstition  would  ever  presume  to 
remove  her  from  it  into  a  semi-adorable  divinity.  As 
St.  Augustine  says  on  the  passage,  it  is  as  if  Christ  had 
replied  to  her,  "  That  in  Me  which  works  miracles  was 
not  born  of  thee."  See  the  deep  distinction  between 
the  mere  filial  feeling,  always  so  tender  and  strong  in  the 
Redeemer,  up  to  the  last  moment  when  He  commended 
her  to  St.  John's  faithful  care  on  the  cross,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  loftier  and  more  august  life  of  God 
within  Him  by  which  He  must  pursue  His  solemn  work 
of  miracle  and  sacrifice  all  alone.  Even  you,  my  mother, 
— He  seems  to  answer  her, — must  now  keep  silence  and 
wait.  Dismiss  that  natural  complacency  and  vain  ambi- 
tion of  display  for  Me.  Let  Me,  from  this  time  forth, 
release  and  disengage  Myself,  not  indeed  from  a  son's 
afiection,  but  from  all  dependence  and  deference,  that  I 
may  go  on  without  hindrance  or  interruption  to  this  sol- 
itary and  separate  office  of  mediatorship  and  propitiation. 
Henceforth  be  the  holy  woman,  the  meek  follower,  the 
redeemed  though  not  sinless  disciple, — and  nothing  more 
than  that,  whatever  erring  men  may  pretend.  But  for 
Me,  the  Son  of  God,  whom  the  Father  hath  sanctified 
and  sent  into  the  world, — not  an  act  in  My  merciful 
ministry  can  be  either  hurried  forward  or  kept  back 
for  an  instant;  it  must  be  done  only  when  "Mine 
hour"  for  it  "is  come." 

All  this  would  be  a  direct  appeal  to  faith,  and  a  call 
for  increased  faith.  For  thirty  years  Mary  had  carried 
in  the  solemn  silence  of  her  soul  the  memory  of  the 
strange  events  which  signalized  His  birth,  childhood, 
and  youth  at  Bethlehem  and  the  Temple.     Probably  the 


INSTANT   OBEDIENCE.  143 

remarkable  words  He  had  shortly  before  uttered  to 
Nathaniel,  written  just  at  the  close  of  the  previous 
chapter,  had  been  repeated  to  her,  "  Hereafter  ye  shall 
see  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending  upon 
the  Son  of  Man."  As  yet  He  had  given  no  super- 
natural sign;  for  we  are  expressly  told  that  this  was 
the  "  beginning  "  of  His  miracles,  manifesting  forth  His 
glory.  If  He  had  really  come  with  a  celestial  commis- 
sion,— greater  than  Moses  and  Elias, — was  it  not  almost 
time,  almost  the  "  hour,"  for  some  token  of  it  to  appear? 
Moses  fed  the  hungry  people  with  heavenly  bread  in 
the  wilderness,  and,  when  they  thirsted,  opened  springs 
of  water  in  the  rock ;  Elias  multiplied  the  widow's  oil 
and  flour.  Why  should  not  this  greater  Prophet,  to 
whom  all  the  prophets  gave  witness,  fill  the  six  stone 
water-pots  before  Him  with  wine,  and  gladden  the  fru- 
gal wedding  with  bounty  by  His  hand  ?  Yet  when  she 
adventured  on  that  so  reasonable  suggestion,  she  was 
rebuffed. 

Just  at  this  point  of  uncertainty,  then,  she  stood. 
The  dull  servants,  knowing  nothing  of  this  mystery, 
ready  to  take  their  order,  were  at  hand.  She  only 
looked  at  Jesus,  and  all  doubts  fled,  all  impatience  gave 
way»  all  fears  and  marvels  sank  to  rest  in  one  blessed 
resolution  of  simple,  trusting  obedience.  "  Whatsoever 
He  saith  unto  you,  do  it."  This  was  the  complete  con- 
fession of  her  faith.  It  was  the  grand  triumph  in  her 
of  the  very  spirit  of  the  Lord.  And  I  shall  go  on  to 
lay  it  open  before  you  now  as  a  condensed  and  blessed 
commandment  of  love  for  us  Christians  of  to-day.  Let 
me  do  this  by  drawing  out  three  contrasts,  implied  in 
the  text. 

"  Whatsoever  He  saith  unto  you."  One  voice  is  singled 
out,  and  we  are  told  of  it,  here  and  in  every  part  of  the 


144  ^      INSTANT  OBEDIENCE. 

Word  of  Life, — that  voice  alone  has  supreme  authority. 
There  are  other  voices,  a  whole  Babel  of  them,  clamor- 
ing to  be  heard.  It  has  been  said,  with  a  great  deal  of 
truth,  that  the  difference  between  one  man  and  another  is 
in  their  choice  of  their  masters.  Some  master  every  hu- 
man being  has,  and  none  are  in  so  complete  a  bondage  as 
those  who  fancy  themselves  to  be  absolutely  independ- 
ent. We  never  call  the  service  that  we  like  a  slavery ; 
the  neighbor  who  looks  on  and  sees  the  toil,  but  has  no 
sympathy  with  the  motive,  may  call  it  so.  To  the  in- 
dolent voluptuary  the  business  man's  unremitting  appli- 
cation is  a  bondage ;  but  this  busy  worker,  with  far  more 
reason,  gives  the  same  name  to  the  voluptuary's  indolence. 
A  mother's  incessant  care  of  her  children  seems  a  slavery 
to  those  who  have  no  sense  of  maternaV  affection.  Each 
of  the  trades,  professions,  callings,  to  observers  who  have 
no  feeling  of  the  spring  from  which  it  is  done,  and  no 
aptitude  or  relish  for  it,  bears  in  its  routine  this  servile 
aspect.  There  is  always  liberty  in  doing  what  we  love 
to  do.  There  are  as  many  masters  as  there  are  interests, 
appetites,  tastes,  passions,  and  pursuits, — of  the.  body 
and  the  mind.  There  are  people  who  scorn  the  idea  of 
working  at  all,  who  yet  work  harder,  put  up  with  more 
humiliations,  and  part  with  more  real  liberty,  for  vanity, 
for  fashion,  for  a  certain  standing  in  society  or  a  certain 
amount  of  prosperity,  or  a  sensual  pleasure,  than  the 
serf  that  is  bought  and  sold  and  whipped.  So  it  appears 
that  men  are  always  choosing  their  masters.  And,  how- 
ever it  may  be  with  the  outward  employments,  when  we 
come  to  their  moral  life,  i.  e.,  the  region  of  their  motives, 
men  are  at  liberty  to  choose  as  they  will.  It  is  there, 
on  that  ground  of  their  moral  freedom,  that  the  Gospel 
meets  them.  The  freedom  of  this  choice,  and  its  re- 
sponsibility, keep  on  with  them,  and  follow  them  up,  till 


INSTANT   OBEDIENCE.  145 

they  die.  Hence  the  mercy  of  God  keeps  the  message 
of  salvation  sounding  through  the  world.  He  has 
turned  your  feet  in  here  to  hear  it  once  more  to-day ; 
and  He  only  knows  whether  it  is  the  last  time  you  will 
hear  it  before  judgment  begins.  Choose  now  this  day 
whom  you  will  serve.  Were  there  any  interference 
with  your  choice,  any  compulsion,  the  whole  state  of  the 
case  would  be  changed ;  preaching  to  you  would  be  an 
impertinence;  and  your  hearing  would  be  in  vain. 
But  there  is  no  interference  and  no  compulsion :  the 
most  frivolous  and  careless  sinner  knows  that.  Tempta- 
tion, in  all  its  degrees, — opportunity,  temperament,  ex- 
ample, education,  perversions  of  the  truth,  bad  custom, 
— these  are  fearful  forces ;  but  never,  anywhere,  do  they 
for  a  moment  annihilate  responsibility,  or  quench  the 
light  lighting  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world. 
The  liberty  to  choose  your  master  clings  to  your  soul. 
Choose  Christ,  and  live  forever ;  choose  otherwise,  any 
other  master,  and  forever  die.  And  you  do  choose. 
Not  only  have  we  the  liberty  to  choose  if  we  will^  but 
we  use  the  liberty.  Every  heart  chooses.  Every  life  is 
the  result  of  that  choice.  We  may  go  on  choosing  and 
choosing  again,  trying  many  masters ;  falsehood  is  never 
consistent  with  itself,  and  sin  loves  change.  Every  pas- 
sion and  appetite  and  interest  may  take  its  turn  in  play- 
ing master.  We  may  fancy  we  make  some  progress, 
hecause  we  change,  when  really  the  selfish  principle,  the 
root  of  all  the  evil,  is  just  as  vital,  and  as  bitter  and  poi- 
sonous in  its  vitality  as  ever,  under  all  the  refinements  of 
culture  and  manners.  The  external  habits  may  become 
more  orderly  and  decent;  the  tastes  less  gross;  the 
results  of  labor  more  useful  to  others.  But  God  is  not 
mocked,  and  we  must  not  deceive  ourselves.  Changing 
our  masters  is  of  no  avail  till  we  exchange  every  other 

10 


146  INSTANT   OBEDIENCE. 

for  God.  Hence  it  is  that  the  Bible  always  treats  the 
false  masters  of  the  soul  as  altogether  but  one ; — "  He 
that  is  not  for  Christ  is  against  Him,"  it  says.  So  it 
presents  but  one  alternative.  "  No  man  can  serve  two 
masters."  The  order  of  the  mother  of  Jesus  at  the 
feast  expands  and  reaffirms  itself,  you  see,  into  a  search- 
ing, universal,  and  unrepealable  command  for  every  soul 
that  would  live.  "  Whatsoever  Re  saith  unto  you,  do 
it."  We  are  servants,  all.  Listen  to  no  other  leader. 
One  voice,  only  one,  is  supreme.  Till  we  have  found 
the  perfectly  holy,  the  all- wise,  and  almighty  One,  we 
shift  our  masters  to  no  purpose.  Christ  alone  can  turn 
the  water  into  wine ;  the  old  life  into  the  new. 

Advance  to  the  truth  that,  as  there  is  but  one  voice 
of  supreme  authority,  so  there  is,  on  our  part,  but  one 
great  principle  of  Christian  duty,  and  that  so  comprehen- 
sive as  to  include  all  particular  directions  and  settle  all 
open  questions,  viz.,  instant,  active  obedience.  "  What- 
ever He  saith  unto  you,  do  itP 

Try  to  consider,  my  friends,  how  many  of  our  failures 
and  miseries  in  Christian  living  creep  in  between  the 
clear  hearing  of  God's  command,  and  the  doing  of  it, — 
or  even  the  resolute,  determined,  hearty  attemjpting  to 
do  it.  I  say  miseries^  because  to  earnest  people  failures 
are  miseries.  I  believe  a  careful  analysis,  a  sifting  to 
the  bottom  of  the  religious  unhappiness  and  dissatisfac- 
tion so  often  complained  of,  would  show  that  it  springs 
very  commonly  from  mistaking  speculative  for  practical 
truth ;  from  putting  matters  of  feeling  and  opinion  in 
place  of  matters  of  obedient  action,  or  doing  God's  will ; 
in  other  words,  from  postponing  an  unquestioning  accept- 
ance of  God's  plain  word  to  a  questioning  which  puts 
the  soul  out  of  the  line  and  attitude  of  simple  obedience 
altogether.     Some  impenetrable  problem  of  God's  provi- 


INSTANT   OBEDIENCE.  147 

dence,  never  meant  for  man  to  comprehend,  is  conjured 
lip  and  brooded  over,  as  if  man  had  a  right  to  fathom  it, 
or,  still  worse,  had  a  right  to  keep  his  faith  and  repent- 
ance waiting  till  he  can  fathom  it.  Some  obscure  dogma, 
which,  in  the  regular  order  of  Christian  progress,  should 
be  left  to  clear  itself  up  to  the  mind  at  some  later  and 
more  advanced  stage  of  the  process  of  sanctification, — 
under  the  law  that  he  who  doeth  the  will  shall  finally  know 
doctrines, — is  torn  from  its  spiritual  relations,  and  set  up 
as  a  stumbKng-block  to  piety,  the  young  disciple  imagining 
he  is  justified  in  serving  some  other  master  than  Christ 
because  he  is  not  made  a  master  himself!  There  are 
other  kindred  impediments  to  true,  straightforward 
Christian  obedience  and  the  joy  of  believing :  moods  of 
depression  and  discontent ;  sorrowful  misgivings  of  hav- 
ing backslidden  and  grown  cold  ;  queryings  whether  the 
plan  of  life  is  right,  whether  time  is  properly  divided 
between  the  conflicting  claims  of  friends,  neighbors, 
family,  or  between  the  active  and  contemplative  elements 
of  religion  ;  there  are  discouragements  and  griefs  at  the 
unbelief  and  unconcern  of  those  so  much  beloved,  that 
the  thought  of  their  having  no  faith  darkens  the  daylight 
of  all  the  days ;  there  are  strange,  nerveless,  inert  seasons, 
when  it  seems  as  if  our  hands  were  tied  and  could  not 
be  loosened,  our  feet  paralyzed  as  in  a  nightmare,  all 
the  horizon  of  usefulness  narrowing  in,  and  pinching  us 
into  spiritual  dwarfs  or  cripples.  What  is  to  be  said  of 
all  these  drawbacks  on  the  liberty  and  growth  of  a  joy- 
ous discipleship,  and  what  the  Bible  does  say  repeatedly 
is  this :  that  they  are  to  be  cast  off  and  left  behind,  not 
by  more  thinking  over  them,  or  more  spasmodic  efforts 
to  pump  up  or  manufacture  mere  feeling,  but  by  a  more 
prompt,  unremitting,  unambitious  doing  of  Christ's  will ; 
a  willingness  to  do  it  with  just  what  strength  and  wis- 


148  INSTANT   OBEDIENCE. 

dom  God  has  lent  you,  and  no  more ;  with  just  that 
degree  of  success,  or  celebrity,  or  comfort,  or  honor,  that 
God  allows,  and  no  more.  "  Jesus  saith  unto  them,  Fill 
the  water-pots  with  water ;  and  they  filled  them  up  to 
the  brim."  We  are  servants  under  Him,  nothing  more, 
and  must  drink  of  all  the  cup  of  obedience  that  He 
drinks  of  in  doing  His  Father's  will,  and  be  baptized 
with  all  the  baptism  that  He  is  baptized  with, — in 
suffering,  weeping,  being  sorrowful,  and  living  in  a 
sinful  world.  Here  is  the  Master's  way.  Doubts, 
fears,  depressions,  break  up  and  dissolve  under  it.  The 
homely  opportunities  that  stand  all  round  us  in  our  every- 
day business,  in  the  houses  and  the  familiar  workshops  of 
the  world,  are  our  six  water-pots  of  stone.  Fill  them  ; 
fill  them  ungrudgingly  and  unhesitatingly;  fill  them 
with  such  water  as  you  have,  and  up  to  the  hrim.  There 
is  but  one  thing  to  be  done  :  "  Whatever  He  saith  unto 
you,  do  it."  Whether  the  water  shall  be  made  wine  is  for 
Him,  the  Master,  to  decide  ;  not  for  us.  We  can  settle 
t)ut  few  difficult  points,  and  puzzle  out  but  few  knotted 
problems.  We  are  like  Mary  in  her  perplexity ;  very 
often  confessing  silently,  "Well,  all  this  is  strange, 
inexplicable ;  we  should  not  have  expected  it  so ;  but 
one  thing  is  certainly  safe  and  clear;  one  blessed  path 
lies  open ;  that  will  bring  all  out  well  and  right  at  last : 
Whatever  He  saith  unto  you,  do  it."  There  is  no 
doom  or  danger  in  that.  Be  about  the  Master's  business. 
Go  to  the  nearest  duty.  Take  up  the  first  cross.  Count 
no  costs  too  great.  Go  forward  to  confession  of  Christ 
and  His  ordinances.  Feed  upon  Him  in  faith.  Do  all 
manner  of  kindnesses  and  charities  to  the  least  of  His 
people  as  unto  Him.  Esteem  a  small  house  large 
enough  to  be  an  entrance-way  to  heaven.  If  the  poor 
season  of  this  mortal  life  and  this  commonplace  world 


INSTANT   OBEDIENCE.  149 

is  ever  to  be  turned,  by  the  miracle  of  grace,  into  a  wed- 
ding-feast for  the  eternal  Bridegroom  and  the  Church 
His  Bride,  it  must  be  by  this  working  of  love  in  Chris- 
tians to  fill  the  water-pots  with  water, — preparing  the 
way  for  the  wisdom  that  transforms  our  weak  and  watery 
offerings  into  the  wine  of  the  new  kingdom. 

There  is  another  kind  of  difficulty  that  is  cured  by 
the  same  obedient  and  prompt  doing  of  the  will, — I 
mean  indecision  as  to  beginning  to  follow  Christ.  There, 
too,  with  most  persons  born  and  bred  in  a  land  of  sanctu- 
aries and  scriptures,  the  obstacle  is  in  a  want  of  religious 
action,  a  lack  of  the  practical  link  that  joins  a  sight  of 
duty  with  the  doing  of  it,  or  a  longing  desire  for  Christ's 
acceptance  with  the  practical  eifort  to  obtain  it.  There 
must  be  some  persons  now  listening  here  that  have  not 
so  decided  and  begun.  I  ask  them  to  go  back  into  their 
past  lives,  and  say  if  they  cannot  recall  some  time  gone 
by  when  they  were  almost  persuaded,  heard  the  Spirit 
pleading,  saw  the  gate  open,  and  then  let  this  world 
draw  them  back.  What  was  it  that  closed  the  way  to 
God's  right  hand  ?  It  was  the  not  walking  at  once  in 
that  way.  It  was  no  mystical  or  metaphysical  or  exter- 
nal impediment ;  it  was  the  moral  chasm  between  hearing 
the  command  and  minding  it.  It  is  not  till  our  part, — 
the  servants'  part, — is  done,  and  the  firkins  are  filled, 
that  the  supernatural  energy  will  change  the  nature  of 
the  heart  into  the  new  creature  in  Christ  Jesus.  Believe  ; 
faith  is  the  power ;  but  the  proof  and  truit  of  faith  is  not 
separated  from  it :  "  Arise,  and  wash  away  thy  sins ; 
bring  forth  fruit  meet  for  repentance ;  bear  witness  to  the 
Eedeemer;  and  have  charity  for  one  another.  So  shall 
all  men  know  that  ye  are  My  disciples." 

One  other  word  completes  the  scope  of  this  lesson : 
the  first  word  of  the  text, — '^  Whatever."     "  Whatever 


!150  INSTANT   OBEDIENCE. 

He  saith  unto  you,  do  it."  What  it  should  be  that  He 
would  say  His  mother  did  not  know ;  the  servants  did 
not  know.  It  turned  out,  with  them,  to  be  no  very 
heavy  or  difficult  task ;  it  might  have  been  to  travel  to 
the  Kedron  or  the  Jordan ;  but  it  certainly  was  a  trial 
of  their  faith,  and  a  greater  trial  than  many  of  those  are 
that  we  call  so.  How  was  the  pouring  into  the  jars  of 
mere  colorless  and  tasteless  water  to  remedy  the  want  of 
wine  ?  Yery  much  so  it  looks  to  us,  in  respect  to  many 
of  the  simple  and  commanded  acts  of  faith,  which  are 
required  of  us  nevertheless.  How  are  our  money  offer- 
ings to  convert  souls  to  Christ  ?  How  are  our  prayers  to 
move  the  everlasting  arm,  stay  sickness  or  sin,  and  turn 
back  the  currents  of  evil  ?  How  shall  bread  and  wine 
feed  the  heart?  How  shall  any  of  the  miracles  of 
Christ's  power  and  compassion  be  wrought  ?  We  are 
slow  to  learn  the  irrelevancy  and  vanity  of  those 
inquiries  ;  yet  learn  it  we  must,  or  never  be  wise  enough 
to  take  our  blessing  and  live  forever. 

And  then  there  are  trials,  not  for  all  of  us,  but  for 
some,  which  need  this  broad  ''  whatever  "  to  cover  them. 
When  you  find  yourself  beginning  to  calculate  the  con- 
sequences of  your  obedience,  and  measuring  out  your 
sacrifices  by  your  prospects  of  reward ;  when  your  flesh 
and  blood  cry  out  that  the  sacrifice  hurts,  and  the  wicked 
world  seems  happier  than  they  that  suffer  affliction  with 
the  people  of  God ;  when  you  must  give  up  more  than 
you  ever  gave  before,  and  more  than  your  neighbors  do, 
— ^you  will  want  this  "  whatever,"" — "  Whatever  He  saith 
to  you,  do  it."  You  will  want  the  wide  faith  it  expresses 
and  requires ;  and  you  can  have  it.  Nay,  you  will  want 
Him  who  is  the  author  and  finisher  of  it,  and  who  said 
beforehand,  ''  In  the  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation ; 
but  be  of  good  cheer,  I  have  overcome  the  world." 


INSTANT   OBEDIENCE.  151 

And  what  a  life  of  holy  power  and  beauty  and  benefi- 
cence this  will  yield  in  our  dwellings !  He  who  began 
His  wonders  at  the  marriage  in  Cana  will  continue  to 
manifest  His  glory  and  diffuse  His  joy  in  every  place 
where  this  blessed  and  trusting  spirit  has  consecrated 
the  family,  and  ordered  its  occupation.  Draw  out  now, 
and  bear  unto  every  guest  in  the  Father's  house.  As  in 
every  miracle  of  His  the  Lord  never  proceeded  without 
regard  to  some  natural  and  ordinary  substance  to  be 
acted  on,  never  created  things  anew  out  of  nothing,  but 
always  changed,  healed,  transformed,  or  made  letter 
something  existing  in  disorder  before  Him,  so  it  is  in 
the  glorious  operation  of  His  Divine  power  on  the  char- 
acter, heart,  and  life  of  men.  He  takes  these  old  and 
common  water-pots  of  our  mortal  relationships,  our 
household  affairs,  our  e very-day  dispositions  and  employ- 
ments, and  then,  if  only  we  are  ready  with  our  obedi- 
ence, fills  them  with  that  new  wine  to  which  He  him- 
self so  often  compares  His  gift  of  life.  "When  the  new 
man  is  put  on,  "  old  things  pass  away,  and  all  things 
become  new,"  but  the  identity  is  not  lost.  The  effect  is 
new ;  the  life  is  new ;  but  you  are  yourself  still,  only 
transformed,  and  the  new  life  is  your  own. 


THE  FOEEMOST   DESIEE. 

Septuagesima  Sunday. 

"Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God,"  and  His  righteousness." — 
St.  Matthew  vi.  33. 

To-day  the  Church  turns  its  thoughts  from  the  begin- 
nings of  our  Lord's  ministry  toward  its  close.  We  have 
been  occupied  with  His  coming,  birth,  and  manifesta- 
tion :  we  now  move  toward  His  cross. 

The  spirit  of  the  text  is  the  spirit  of  the  Epistle. 
There  is  one  •''  race ''  to  be  run ;  one  "  prize "  to  be 
gained.  Everything  else  is  less  than  the  "  incorruptible 
crown."  The  cross  lies  on  the  way  to  that.  Put  all  else 
aside ;  count  all  else  immaterial ;  do  all,  bear  all,  for  that. 
Seek  it  "  first." 

The  command  carries  the  whole  weight  and  compass 
of  its  meaning  clearly  written  on  its  face.  "  Seek  ye  first 
the  kingdom  of  God,  and  His  righteousness."  The 
impression  it  conveys  directly  to  every  soul  is  the  true 
one.  I  doubt  whether  in  this  cono^res^ation  there  is  a 
person  really  listening  to  it  that  lias  not  said  silently, 
"  That  is  a  high  call ;  that  must  come  out  of  the  very 
Spirit  and  throne  of  God ;  it  sounds  like  the  voice  of 
One  who  speaks  with  an  authority  that  it  would  be 
vain  to  question  ;  the  words  have  the  ring  of  eternal 
truth,  reason,  and  right  in  them."  It  is  an  explicit 
requirement, — positive,  comprehensive,  intelligible.     It 


THE   FOREMOST    DESIRE.  153 

stands  there  in  the  midst  of  that  Divine  sermon, 
which  begins  with  beatitudes  and  ends  with  a  warning, 
like  the  mount  on  which  it  was  delivered  in  the  scenery 
around  it,  the  summit  of  an  ascending  grade  of  many 
heavenward-leading  invitations.  It  sounds  out  a  rallying 
cry  for  the  waking  minute-men  of  the  army  of  the  Great 
King.  "  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  His 
righteousness." 

Sometimes  when  men  are  called  so  to  rouse  and  enrol 
themselves  under  Christ's  cross  they  are  ready  in  the 
main,  they  acknowledge  the  general  duty;  but  they 
want  to  ask  particular  questions  and  to  receive  particular 
explanations.  Such  states^  of  mind,  if  they  are  honest, 
and  are  fairly  met,  may  end  in  faithful  service  on  the 
Saviour's  side.  Seeking,  they  find.  But  Christ  knew 
that  there  are  other  postures  of  men's  minds,  terribly 
common,  where  a  life  with  Him  amid  the  realities  of  the 
spiritual  world  are  not  set  at  all  into  this  foremost  place ; 
indifference  is  the  first  and  fatal  danger.  There  is  not 
concern  enough  to  raise  particular  inquiries.  There  are 
no  questions  to  be  asked  about  the  methods,  the  condi- 
tions, the  preparations,  the  way  of  the  eternal  life  with 
Christ,  because  the  treasure  lies  too  far  away.  Some- 
times, when  you,  men  of  business,  are  invited  to  embark 
in  a  new  enterprise,  you  see  and  acknowledge  its  eminent 
importance,  and  only  delay  for  an  intelligent  investi- 
gation. In  other  cases,  you  say  at  once  that  it  has  no 
attraction  for  you ;  you  are  interested  in  other  matters  ; 
and,  before  he  has  opened  his  portfolio  or  unrolled  his 
scheme,  you  dismiss  the  applicant  from  your  door.  It  is 
to  this  last  class  of  dealers  with  His  heavenly  benefit  that 
the  Saviour  is  here  spealdng, — the  unconcerned.  To  use 
His  own  language,  which  is  always  the  best,  "  the  cares 
of  this  world,"  "  the  deceitfulness  of  riches,"  "  the  pride 


154  THE  FOREMOST   DESIRE. 

of  life,"  "  what  shall  we  eat  ? "  "  wherewithal  shall  we 
be  clothed  ?  "  "  how  shall  more  goods  be  got  and  laid  up 
for  many  years,"  or  spent,  or  shown  ? — these  are  the  real 
interests ;  they  are  supreme.  "Why  not  frankly  confess 
it,  you  man  or  woman  of  the  world  ?  Why  do  you  go 
round  about  the  matter  with  ingenious  circumlocutions, 
with  your  apologetic  postponements,  your  half-way 
assent,  or  your  heartless  confessions  ?  If  these  "  be  thy 
gods,"  why  not  acknowledge  and  stand  by  them  ?  Why 
add  an  unmanly  pretension  to  an  ungodly  preference, 
and  crown  your  faithlessness  to  Christ  with  an  acted  lie 
to  your  fellow-men?  Why  buy  your  unopened  Bible, 
and  pay  the  tax  on  your  reluctantly  occupied  pew,  and 
repeat  compliments  to  a  public  Christianity,  and  send 
for  the  minister  to  bury  your  dead,  if  your  life  and  heart 
have  another  master,  another  worship,  and  another 
heaven  ?  Natural  honor  must  admire  Elijah's  straight- 
forward and  clear-dividing  doctrine :  "  If  the  Lord  be 
God,  follow  Him ;  but  if  Baal,  then  follow  him."  Only 
one  kingdom  can  he  first. 

"  The  kingdom  of  God,  and  His  righteousness."  Can 
there  be  any  ambiguity  about  the  object  ?  It  is  plainly 
of  two  parts :  one  social  and  outward, — God's  "  king- 
dom " ;  the  other  personal  and  inward, — "  His  righteous- 
ness "  ;  and  these  two  are  so  fitted  together,  and  so  par- 
take of  each  other,  that  each  alone  is  incomplete ;  both 
are  one  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  Christian  obligation. 
And  the  Saviour's  command  is  not  kept  till  both  are 
sought.  Yet,  in  seeking  them,  there  is  no  dividing  of 
the  attention,  no  doubling  of  the  purpose,  and  no  diver- 
gence in  the  road.  After  all  it  is  but  one  thing^  one 
object,  one  seeking,  one  choice  and  act,  one  eternal  bless- 
ing. How  is  it  with  the  prodigal?  Up  to  a  certain 
time  he  has  no  particular  destination,  no  plan,  as  he  has 


THE   FOREMOST   DESIRE.  155 

no  faith.  He  only  intends  to  wander  on,  and  get  the 
most  selfish  enjoyment  out  of  the  world  that  it  can  be 
made  to  yield  him.  The  one  bad  determining  act  was 
done  where  he  set  up  his  own  headstrong  will,  took  the 
means  of  self-gratification  into  his  hands,  and  made  the 
world's  great  sensual  saloon  his  only  home.  But  the 
prodigal  was  no  extraordinary  monster.  This  Christian 
community  has  thousands  of  men  in  it  that  are  doing  the 
same  thing  in  kind  every  day,  and  doing  it  reputably 
enough.  The  one  characteristic  fact  about  him  was  that 
his  back  was  turned  to  his  father  and  his  father's  house. 
He  sought  another  kingdom  first.  Precisely  how  far  he 
had  gone,  or  into  what  company,  was  not  the^r^^  con- 
sideration ;  but  which  way  he  was  moving.  His  father 
let  him  have  his  portion  of  the  property,  to  try  his 
unfilial  and  dismal  experiment  with  ;  and  so  Providence 
lets  irreligious  and  unchristian  men  have  money  and 
prosperity,  for  the  same  purpose,  here.  There  is  some- 
thing unspeakably  pathetic,  sad,  in  the  sight  of  a  man, 
with  a  heart  in  his  breast  which  God  made,  getting 
worldly  success,  nothing  else,  and  working  this  experi- 
ment out.  Tlie  badges  of  fortune  that  He  hangs 
out  about  him,  and  about  his  family,  are  only  the  mock- 
eries of  his  mistake.  How  he  is  to  discover  it  is  only  a 
question  of  time ;  and  this*  is  partl}?^  the  sadness  of  it. 
You  look  at  him  as  one  after  another  of  his  purposes  is 
accomplished,  as  one  token  after  another  of  his  rising 
and  flourishing  condition  is  put  forth  in  his  establish- 
ment, and  you  wonder  when  and  how  it  will  be  that  the 
hunger  in  his  heart  is  to  discover  itself  to  him.  What 
will  be  the  mysterious  influence, — whose  infidelity, 
whose  treachery,  what  disorder,  what  miscalculation, — 
that  will  turn  all  these  splendors  into  husks,  and  these 
apples  into  ashes?    On  which  child's  bloom  will  the 


166  THE    FOREMOST   DESIKE. 

blight  settle  ?  In  what  night  will  the  alarm  come,  that 
is  the  beginning  of  the  end,  saying,  "  Thy  soul  is  required 
of  thee "  ?  Fulness  of  the  intellect,  fulness  of  the 
body,  fulness  of  the  estate,  will  not  keep  the  sense  of 
hunger  away, — and  the  sense  of  it  is  the  reality  of  it. 

When  "  he  comes  to  himself,"  you  find  one  thing  pre- 
senting itself  to  this  man's  empty  heart.  It  is  that  one 
thing  that  makes  all  the  difference  between  a  bad  and  a 
good  son,  a  self-alienated,  wretched  child  and  a  filial  one, 
an  obstinate  and  a  repenting  sinner.  The  whole  change 
is  wrought  immediately  within,  him.  But  what  change  ? 
I*^ot  a  change  of  place;  he  has  done  nothing  yet  but 
think  and  feel.  Not  a  change  in  his  outer  man.  IS" either 
time  nor  miracle  has  repaired  the  waste  of  dissipation  in 
his  body.  ITot  a  complete  revolution  yet,  in  all  the 
courses  and  tendencies  of  his  thoughts  and  desires, — for 
it  takes  time  to  swing  all  these  round,  in  the  new-born 
man,  so  that  they  shall  play  spontaneously  and  harmon- 
iously with  the  motions  of  the  Spirit  in  the  "new 
creature."  But,  a  change  in  his  relations  to  his  Father 
and  his  Father'^s  house.  In  that  point,  which  is  the 
decisive  point  in  every  character,  the  change  is  entire. 
Before,  every  longing,  impulse,  passion,  from  intellectual 
curiosity  down  to  fleshly  lust,  looked  for  its  indulgence 
away  from  home,  which  means  away  from  God ;  and 
obeying  that  choice,  every  step  bore  him  literally 
"  away."  Place  is  not  essential  at  first ;  but  destination 
is  essential.  Distance  is  not  the  principal  thing ;  direc- 
tion is.  Does  the  heart  turn  loyally  and  yearn  faithfully 
to  God?  And  now,  what  is  the  first  sign  and  proof  of 
the  inward  transformation  ?  It  is  in  the  character  of  the 
"  first "  thought  and  the  "  first "  desire.  Before,  it  was 
to  get  away  from  the  Father  and  forget  Him  ;  now,  it  is 
to  get  home  and  abide  with  Him.     And  here  you  find 


THE   FOREMOST   DESIRE.  157 

just  those  two  parts  of  the  new  life  which  the  text 
requires;  the  new  ^lace  and  the  new  heart ;  the  seat  at 
the  family  board,  and  the  reconciled  feeling;  the  open 
and  visible  return,  as  well  as  the  secret  repentance; 
the  Father's  house,  or  Church,  as  well  as  the  Father's 
favor  and  forgiveness; — indeed,  where  else  shall  the 
favor  and  forgiveness  be  found  but  there,  on  the  ap- 
pointed spot,  at  the  threshold  of  the  old  house-door, 
where  childhood  and  baptism  once  left  him  ?  Yes,  "  the 
Jcingdom  of  God,  and  the  righteousness  thereof."  It 
will  not  do  to  stay  back  among  the  husks  of  the  far 
country,  no  matter  whether  they  are  the  dissolute  husks 
of  sensual  pleasure,  or  the  sordid  husks  of  a  thrifty  and 
elegant  worldly-mindedness,  or  the  frost-bitten  husks 
of  intellectual  pride ; — not  the  least  matter.  It  is  your 
Father's  house  that  claims  you.  Men  will  ask,  and 
they  have  a  right  to  ask,  "Under  which  king?  Whose 
art  thou  ? "  Much  goods  may  have  been  laid  up  for 
many  years,  or  you  may  have  failed  to  get  them,  or  may 
have  squandered  them.  These  are  not  differences  in  the 
sight  of  Him  who  says,  "  Seek  first  the  kingdom  of 
God,  and  His  righteousness."  To  Him  the  only  differ- 
ence is  between  those  that  are  seeking  and  those  that 
are  not.  "  This  night  thy  soul  shall  be  required  of 
thee."      Whose  is  that  soul  ? 

"  Seek  ye."  But  there  are  two  different  kinds  of 
seeking.  One  is  the  seeking  of  those  who  do  not  know, 
while  ,  they  seek,  whether  they  shall  find  or  not ;  the 
other  of  those  w^ho  know, — because  they  believe,  and 
know  in  whom  they  believe, — that  by  seeking  they  shall 
find.  This  seems  to  some  of  you,  perhaps,  a  not  very 
important  difference;  or  else  so  very  plain  a  one  that 
everybody  must  see  it.  You  would  not  think  so,  any 
of  you,   if  you  saw  how  many  people  there  are  in 


158  THE  FOEEMOST   DESIEE. 

every  assembly  as  large  as  tins  who  can  say  sincerely 
tliat  they  wish  they  were  Christ's  disciples,  and  yet  are 
not,  and  do  not  know  how  to  be,  or  whether  in  fact  they 
can  be.  What  is  this  but  seeking  without  knowing 
whether  they  shall  find  "  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  His 
righteousness  "  ?  They  seek,  if  peradventure  they  may 
find.  Some  do, — they  say, — and  some  fail;  they  are 
not  sure  whether  there  is  some  antecedent,  fatal,  fore- 
ordained objection  in  the  mind  of  God ; — they  are  not 
sure  whether  the  message  the  King  has  sent  them  is  all 
true,  and  the  ofier  of  His  love  is  as  large  as  it  seems ; 
they  are  not  sure  whether  there  are  not  difiiculties  in 
themselves,  of  constitution,  or  habit,  a  temper  or  a 
tongue  so  unpromising  as  to  shut  out  all  probability  of 
their  evfer  making  strong  Christians ;  they  are  not  sure 
whether  they  shall  have  any  helps  after  they  begin  seek- 
ing, or  enough  to  carry  them  through ;  they  are  not 
sure  but  there  are  some  mystical  conditions,  or  incom- 
prehensible doctrines,  which  are  laid  down  at  the  door 
of  the  kingdom,  which  they  are  expected  to  comprehend, 
or  be  kept  away.  It  is  easy  to  see  what  irresolute, 
ineffectual  seeking  this  will  be.  It  is  not  that  seeking 
of  faith  which  the  Saviour  tries  in  so  many  ways  to  create, 
— by  showing  us  Himself,  by  assuring  us  of  the  tenderness 
of  the  Father's  compassion,  by  comparing  earthly  things 
with  spiritual,  and  the  temporal  with  the  eternal,  telling 
us  that  all  our  outward  wealth  is  but  the  grass  that  to- 
morrow is  cast  into  the  oven ;  by  solemn  repetitions  of 
the  promise  that  He  will  keep  those  who  once,  in  a  good 
confession,  commit  themselves  to  Him;  by  declaring 
that  no  one  shall  pluck  them  out  of  His  hand ;  by  mir- 
acles that  open  the  kingdom  of  God  to  our  very  eyes ; 
by  the  parable  of  the  great  supper  for  "the  lame, 
the  halt,  and  the  blind " ;  and  by  dying  in  the  depth 


THE   FOREMOST   DESIRE.  159 

and  boundlessness  of  His  love,  that  "whosoever 
will"  may  come.  Yes:  "the  kingdom  of  God"  is 
there,  and  is  open ;  the  "  righteousness  "  of  God  is  real 
and  waiting.  It  is  not  a  venture,  a  possibility,  a  hap- 
hazard seeking, — like  that  before  the  dreary  and  unbe- 
lieving mind  of  Rabelais,  when  he  felt  himself  dying, 
and  said,  in  melancholy  acquiescence,  "  I  go  to  seek  the 
great  Perhaps."  How  unlike  St.  Paul's  "  I  have  fin- 
ished my  course,  henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a 
crown  of  righteousness  which  the  Lord  will  give  me," 
or  St.  Stephen's  "  Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit,"  with 
his  face  already  like  the  face  of  an  angel !  Yes,  there 
must  be  some  faith,  to  begin  the  seeking ;  faith  enough 
to  be  sure  of  God;  faith  enough  to  be  certain  that, 
whatever  we  may  do  or  be,  Christ  means  what  He  says 
when  He  declares  "  The  kingdom  of  God  has  come  nigh 
unto  you,"  "  Ask,  and  ye  shall  receive,"  "  Seek,  and  ye 
shall  find." 

Seek  it  first : — first  in  time,  now,  before  anything  else 
is  sought  or  done ;  first  in  importance,  never  letting  any 
other  interest  crowd  this  aside,  or  other  engagements 
take  precedence  of  the  appointed  means  and  ordinances 
that  lead  to  this ;  first  in  earnestness,  cheerfully  sacrific- 
ing society,  business,  income,  admiration,  just  so  far  as 
they  hinder  or  interfere  with  this ;  first  in  afibction,  so 
that  you  can  sincerely  say,  with  St.  Paul,  "  I  am  per- 
suaded that  neither  life  nor  death,  nor  things  present 
nor  things  to  come,  nor  high  things  nor  low  things,  nor 
any  other  creature,  shall  be  able  to  separate  me  from  the 
love  of  God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord."  Why, 
if  this  were  the  manner  and  the  spirit  of  all  our  seek- 
ing,— intense  and  sober  and  confident, — if  all  the  world's 
business  were  so  done,  and  its  pleasure  so  moderated 
and  purified,  as  to  be  in  all  points  made  secondary  and 


160  THE   FOREMOST   DESIRE. 

tributary  to  tliis, — I  liardlj  know  whether  the  greater 
change  would  pass  over  the  world  or  over  the  Church ; 
— over  those  that  profess  and  call  themselves  Christians, 
yet  make  their  religion  wait  for  their  traffic  and  their 
entertainment,  or  over  the  surrounding  multitudes  that 
do  not  believe  the  faith  of  Christ  to  be  a  reality  at  all 
only  because  they  do  not  see  avowed  Christians  treating 
it  and  presenting  it  as  the  "first"  thhig.  Yet  this  is 
perfectly  compatible  with  a  diligent  business  life,  with 
doing  vigorously  the  daily  work  that  your  hand  finds  to 
do,  with  public  spirit,  with  learning,  with  patriotism, 
with  all  the  refinements  and  culture  of  a  high-bred  tone 
of  civilization.  IS^ay,  everything  other  than  this, — every- 
thing that  inverts  this  Divine  order,  or  subordinates 
Christ's  kingdom  and  righteousness  to  the  kingdom  of 
this  world,  and  seeks  material  or  merely  intellectual 
glory  firsts  is  not  a  high-bred  civilization  ;  but  the  seeds 
of  weakness  and  vulgarity  and  extravagance  and  hollow 
scepticism,  and  a  foetid  barbarism  are  in  it,  till  the 
curses  of  God  light  upon  it,  and  you  have  the  old 
spectacle  of  commonwealths  revolting  from  their 
heavenly  King,  and  perishing  in  dishonor.  To  make 
spiritual  interests  foremost  and  supreme  is  not  fanat- 
icism or  asceticism.  Christ  takes  all  truth  into  His 
Gospel,  and  remembers  our  whole  condition.  When 
He  says,  "  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  His 
righteousness,"  what  follows?  "all  other  things  shall 
be  added  unto  you."  "  Godliness  is  profitable  for  the 
life  that  now  is,  as  well  as  for  that  which  is  to  come  " ; 
for  both  lie  within  the  Father's  keeping,  and  over  both 
His  empire  extends. 

There  was  living,  not  long  ago,  a  thoroughly  conse- 
crated Christian  merchant,  now  among  God's  saints  no 
doubt  in  paradise,  who  began  and  finished  his  whole 


THE   FOREMOST    DESIRE.  161 

prosperous  career  as  a  steward  seeking  "  first "  Christ's 
kingdom, — and  giving  of  his  income,  to  the  glory  of 
that  kingdom,  first  a  tenth,  then  a  half,  and  finally  the 
whole.  When  this  man  found  himself  prostrated  by 
disease,  and  not  very  likely  to  recover,  his  conversation 
was  as  cheerful  and  manly  as  ever.  If  the  Master 
should  call  him,  he  was  ready.  But  it  would  be  a  severe 
disappointment,  he  said,  if  he  should  be  long  inactive 
and  unprofitable.  There  was  the  balance,  in  him,  of  the 
helieving  and  the  working  faculties.  "  You  can  under- 
stand this  state  of  feeling,"  he  said  to  his  clergyman, 
"  because  you  are  interested  in  your  own  work  for  the 
Master,  and  would  regard  your  separation  from  it  as  a 
calamity.  IS'ot,"  he  continued,  "  that  I  would  compare 
money-making  in  importance  with  the  preaching  of 
Christ,  but  I  think  I  can  say,  as  in  the  sight  of  God, 
that  my  aim  in  making  money  is  the  same  as  that  of 
every  true  minister  of  Christ  in  preaching  the  Gospel." 
That  candid  and  confidential  statement,  with  eternity 
in  plain  sight,  disclosed  the  real  secret  of  the  energy  of 
his  business  life.  It  is  just  as  possible  for  such  a  man 
to  seek  first  God's  kingdom  and  righteousness  in  the 
regulated  and  sanctified  activity  which  yet  never  takes 
him  from  his  place  in  the  Lord's  service,  as  if  he  waked 
and  slept  in  a  cloister. 

I  recall  another  eminent  merchant,  up  to  the  close  of 
his  last  day  of  health  working  indefatigably,  as  he  had 
worked  for  many  years,  not  to  add  more  to  a  great  for- 
tune, but  to  serve  and  set  forward,  with  what  he  already 
had,  and  with  every  capacity  of  his  capacious  nature, 
this  kingdom,  and  the  glory  of  its  King.  The  few  final 
months  he  gave  especially  to  the  relief  and  evangeliza- 
tion of  the  freedmen  at  the  South.     On  one  of  the 

bitterest  days  of  the  Winter,  as  if  some  solemn  prein- 

11 


162  THE   FOREMOST   DESIEE. 

timation  told  him  his  hour  was  at  hand,  he  refused  to 
leave  his  counting-house,  where  he  was  laboring  from 
morning  till  night  in  this  work  of  mercy.  Feeling  a 
strange  pain  in  his  head,  he  bandaged  it  with  water  and 
worked  on.  As  the  night  came  on,  he  rose  from  that 
desk,  where  he  had  earned  a  dignity  which  gives  him  a 
place,  it  seems  to  me,  with  the  missionaries  and  soldiers 
of  the  cross,  with  statesmen  and  scholars,  and  turning 
to  his  clerk  said,  as  his  last  words, — sublime  in  their 
simplicity  as  almost  any  of  the  dying  expressions  of 
saints  on  record, — "Now, — have  I  left  anything  un- 
done ? "  Before  he  had  reached  his  home,  the  cloud 
fell  over  his  mind;  and,  after  a  few  half-articulate  syl- 
lables, showing  that  his  thought  was  still  reaching  back 
to  the  poor  creatures  that  leaned  upon  him,  breathing 
that  charity  which  "  never  faileth,"  about  midnight  li,e 
fell  asleep.  Why  is  it,  O  men  of  strength,  young  men, 
or  men  in  whom  the  fire  of  youth  is  cooling, — why  is  it 
that  we  do  not  see  the  true  glory  of  our  lives,  and 
round  them  out,  and  end  them,  oftener,  in  such  holy 
grandeur  as  this? — "Have  I  left  anything  undone?" 
for  Christ  and  His  kingdom  ?  It  matters  very  little  how 
soon  the  night  shuts  in,  or  the  Master  calls,  if  all  our 
days  ended  with  that.  The  kingdom  would  go  forward, 
though  men  die ;  the  race  would  be  emancipated  and 
regenerated  by  the  living  power  and  witness  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  the  Comforter. 

Would  to  God,  dear  friends,  that  all  the  air  about  us 
were  quick  with  that  spirit !  that  the  life  kindled  and 
glowed,  with  healthful  fire,  along  all  our  sluggish  congre- 
gations and  our  worldly  highways !  Have  no  fears  that 
faith  and  prayer  will  open  the  windows  of  heaven  too 
wide,  or  that  our  staid  Lents  and  reverential  Pentecosts 
will  be  too  refreshing !     Spiritual  interests  are  foremost 


THE   FOREMOST   DESIRE.  163 

and  supreme.  Eternity  is  close  at  hand.  The  Judge 
does  stand  at  the  door.  The  time  is  short.  Wisdom 
does  utter  her  voice  in  these  streets,  "  Unto  you,  O  men, 
I  call."  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  as  the  Gospel  says,  is  pass- 
ing by.  This  Church  is  opening  her  gate  for  the  yearly 
ingathering.  E'o  man  can  serve  two  masters.  Seek  ye 
first  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  His  righteousness, — first 
in  time,  first  in  concern,  first  in  earnestness,  first  in 
affection. 

"  Awake,  thou  Spirit  who  of  old,  in  love  and  truth. 
Didst  fire  the  watchmen  of  the  Church's  youth, 
"Whose  voices  through  the  world  are  ringing  still, 
And  bringing  hearts  to  know  and  do  Thy  will. 

"  Would  there  were  help  within  our  walls ! 

Oh  let  the  promised  Spirit  come  again 
Before  whom  every  barrier  falls, 

And,  ere  the  night,  shine  forth  as  then! 
Rend  Thou  the  heavens,  and  make  Thy  presence  felt; 
These  chains  that  bind  us  at  Thy  touch  would  melt. 

"  Oh  that  thy  fire  were  kindled  soon! 

That  swift  from  land  to  land  its  flame  might  leap  I 
Lord,  give  us  but  this  priceless  boon 

Of  faithful  servants,  fit,  for  Thee,  to  reap, — 
And  let  them  all  the  earth  for  Thee  reclaim 
To  U  Thy  kingdom,  and  to  know  Thy  name  1" 


SOJ^S   AND   DATJGHTEES    IN   THE   FAMILY 
OF    CHEIST. 

Sexagesima  Sunday. 

"Wherefore  come  out  from  among  them,  and  be  ye  separate, 
saith  the  Lord,  and  touch  not  the  unclean  thing;  and  I  will  receive 
you,  and  will  be  a  Father  unto  you,  and  ye  shall  be  my  sons  and 
daughters,  saith  the  Lord  Almighty." — II.  Corinthians  vi.  17,  18. 

Two  elements,  jou  perceive,  enter  into  tlie  substance 
of  this  majestic  sentence :  a  precept  and  a  promise.  The 
strength  of  the  apostle's  thought  seems  to  accumulate 
from  period  to  period,  through  the  preceding  passage,  till 
the  gathered  force  of  his  argument,  like  a  great  wave 
striking  the  shore,  breaks  over  into  a  flood  of  feeling. 
Having  glanced  from  the  earthly  tabernacle  to  the 
"  House  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens," 
from  the  "  light  affliction  "  befalling  the  "  outward  "  man 
that  faints  and  perishes,  to  the  "  eternal  weight  of  glory  " 
yet  invisible,  showing  how,  in  every  soul  that  is  new- 
created  in  Christ  Jesus,  "  mortality  is  swallowed  up  of 
life,"  because  that  "  inward  man  is  renewed  day  by 
day,"  and  then  setting  forth  the  mighty  motive  to  that 
conversion,  viz.,  that  "  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the 
world  unto  Himself,"  He  comes  at  last  to  that  close 
point  in  the  process,  where  he  defines  the  essential  con- 
tradiction between  the  spiritual  and  the  earthly  man. 
By  a  succession  of  quick,  sharp  questions,  the  sword  of 


SONS   AND   DAUGHTERS   IN   CHRIST.  165 

his  doctrine  cuts  asunder  the  sophistry  which  would  mix 
up  worldly  self-will  with  Christian  consecration,  and 
shows  the  world  to  be  made  up  of  two  sorts  of  persons. 
"  What  fellowship  hath  righteousness  with  unrighteous- 
ness ?  "What  communion  hath  light  with  darkness  ? 
What  concord  hath  Christ  with  Belial  ?  What  part  hath 
he  that  believeth  with  an  infidel?  What  agreement 
hath  the  temple  of  God  with  idols  ? "  And  then,  the 
crowning  conclusion :  "  Wherefore  come  out  from  among 
them,  and  be  ye  separate,  and  touch  not  the  unclean 
thing,  saith  the  Lord  "  ; — for  it  is  this  '•'Thus  saith  the 
Lord''^  that  seals  the  promise.  "  And  I  will  be  a  Father 
unto  you,  and  ye  shall  be  my  sons  and  daughters,  saith 
the  Lord  Almighty." 

1.  There  is  a  precept.  In  order  to  a  Christian  posi- 
tion there  must  be  a  special  act ;  an  act  so  personal,  posi- 
tive, and  comprehensive,  that  it  determines  on  which 
side  of  one  fixed  line  the  rest  of  our  actions  shall  stand. 
You  may  call  it  by  whatever  name  bears  most  signifi- 
cance to  your  own  mind  ;  the  Scriptures  furnish  as  great 
a  variety  as  you  can  desire :  "  renewal  of  the  mind  "  ; 
"conversion";  "believing  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ " ; 
"getting  a  new  heart  and  spirit";  "putting  off  the 
works  of  darkness  and  putting  on  the  armor  of  light "  ; 
"  forsaking  idols"  ;  "coming  out  and  being  separate"  ; 
these  are  the  Biblical  terms  for  a  single  fact ;  and  if  you 
can  find  a  term  more  descriptive  of  that  fact  than  either 
of  these.  Scripture  nowhere  forbids  you  to  use  it,  pro- 
vided you  are  sure  to  retain  the  substance  of  the  thing 
meant.  What  is  essential  is  that  conscious  choice  of  the 
soul  by  which  it  gathers  up  its  powers,  and  resolves, — 
God's  grace  helping  it,  as  He  ever  will  help, — to  be  on 
Christ's  side,  in  this  fronting  of  armies  and  this  awful 
battle  of  our  life. 


166  SONS   AND   DAUGHTERS 

Furthermore,  this  act  of  choice  is  the  same  deep 
necessity  now  that  it  was  when  Corinth  was  corrupting 
tlie  whole  East,  and  the  citizens  were  wasting  their 
manhood  with  Oriental  luxuries  and  sensuality,  and  this 
brave  apostle  was  warning  them.  The  human  heart  is 
the  same,  as  to  its  depravity,  and  its  immortality.  The 
same  temptations,  with  only  slight  variations  in  their 
form,  heset  men  now  as  then.  The  same  two  armies 
face  each  other ;  believers  standing  up  for  Christ  Jesus, 
and  unconverted  men  standing  up  for  themselves ;  and 
there  is  also  the  same  cowardly  company  on  the  margin, 
trying  to  be  neutral,  and  trying  in  vain  ;  flattering  them- 
selves that  they  can  be  not  exactly  for  Christ  without 
being  exactly  against  Him,  and  with  just  the  same  suc- 
cess ;  fancying  that  they  can  carry  the  credit  of  being 
good  men  without  carrying  the  cross  for  it ;  that  they 
can  blur  over  that  eternal  dividing  line  which  runs  down 
from  the  throne  of  God,  where  there  is  a  right  hand  and 
a  left,  through  every  nation,  and  every  city,  and  congre- 
gation, and  company,  and  sometimes  between  the  two 
that  walk  arm  in  arm,  or  sit  in  the  church  side  by  side. 
The  same  two  adversaries  play  their  old  game  for  the 
soul  of  man.  The  stake  is  the  same.  The  strategy  and 
snares,  the  deceptions  and  disguises,  are  the  same.  We 
Americans  sail  swifter  ships,  and  over  wider  waters,  than 
were  steered  from  the  double-port  of  that  "  mistress  of 
the  keys  of  the  Peloponnesus "  into  the  Ionian  and 
Egean  Seas;  but  the  practices  that  make  all  trafiic 
Christian  or  unchristian  are  not  far  diiferent.  Our  civil 
constitution  and  relations  are  not  those  of  a  colonial 
dependence  on  a  distant  throne ;  but  the  inducements 
to  political  fraud,  and  the  robberies  perpetrated  by 
parties  on  the  nation,  and  by  selfishness  on  the  State, 
are  little  altered  by  time.     Social  frivolity  may  here  be 


IN   THE   FAMILY   OF   CHRIST.  167 

less  stimulated  bj  climate,  and  convivial  excess  may  flow 
through  a  less  public  apparatus  ;  but  this  only  aggravates 
the  shame  of  those  women  here  that  prepare  and  patron- 
ize the  frivolity,  and  those  men  that  encourage  the  excess. 
The  lires  of  appetite  have  not  been  quenched  by  our 
colder  skies,  or  burnt  out  through  eighteen  centuries  of 
burning.  Tell  us,  men  who  are  sitting  at  the  heads  of 
these  pews,  has  the  love  of  money,  that  root  of  evil, 
rotted  in  our  northern  soil  ?  or  been  weeded  out  ? 
Every  age  brings  its  new  brood  of  vices  and  adds  to  the 
funded  stock ;  but  very  few  that  have  once  got  a  foothold 
die  out.  History  hardly  tells  of  one  extinct  species  in 
the  flora  of  guilt.  If  civilization  multiplies  the  refine- 
ments of  culture,  so  does  it  the  refinements  of  iniquity. 
Pride  remains  as  obstinate  ;  self-love  as  subtle  ;  envy  as 
adroit ;  avarice  as  grasping  ;  ambition  as  unscrupulous  ; 
self-satisfied  indifi'erence  as  stupid ;  and  worldly  enter- 
prise as  often  "  without  God  in  the  world."  ^ay,  and 
going  behind  all  the  moralities  of  life  into  the  evangelic 
test  lying  at  the  heart  of  the  Gospel,  men  are  just  as 
eager  to  climb  up  some  other  way,  instead  of  entering  by 
the  lowly  door  of  "  repentance  toward  God  and  faith  in 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  And  therefore,  what  it  most 
concerns  us  to  remember,  the  responsibility  of  choice  is 
just  as  pressing.  It  is  as  impossible  to  evade  it  and  slip 
into  any  third  way.  On  one  side  we  must  he^ — Christ's 
or  Belial's.  Righteousness  refuses  fellowship  with  un- 
righteousness. Light  offers  no  hospitality  to  darkness. 
If  idols  have  our  hearts'  secret  worship,  the  true  temple 
of  God  shuts  its  doors  upon  us.  We  must  touch  and 
handle  the  unclean  thing,  or  let  it  alone.  "We  do  assort 
with  the  unbelievers,  or  come  out  from  among  them  and 
be  separate  ;  and  the  Judge  knows  which  we  do. 

It  need  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Church  has  some- 


168  SONS   AND   DAUGHTEES 

times  made  a  mistaken  use  of  this  truth.  It  has  done 
so  whenever  it  has  sought  to  exaggerate  the  distinction 
between  the  world's  people  and  Christ's  people,  for  pur- 
poses of  self-complacency  or  self-applause.  It  has  done 
so  whenever  it  has  drawn  itself  up  in  phylacteries,  and 
stood,  a  Pharisee,  aloof  from  the  throng  of  humanity, 
saying  scornfully,  "  I  am  holier  than  thou."  It  has  done 
so  whenever  it  has  made  dress,  badge,  ritual,  feeling, 
professions,  the  line  of  distinction,  rather  than  a  prin- 
ciple ruling  the  life.  The  right  way  for  the  Church  to 
distinguish  itself  from  the  world  is,  as  its  Head  distin- 
guished Himself  from  His  countrymen  after  the  flesh,  by 
a  purer  holiness,  and  a  warmer  zeal  to  help  and  save  the 
world.  Perpetuating  its  Lord's  divine  ministry  and 
spirit,  it  should  be  as  anxious  as  His  own  pitying  heart 
was  to  rescue  the  lost,  to  call  prodigals  home,  to  redeem 
publicans  and  sinners,  to  undo  heavy  burdens,  to  sanctify 
children  from  their  childhood,  to  preach  and  spread  on 
earth  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Christian  men  should  be 
known  from  men  not  Christian  by  every  nobler  disposi- 
tion, every  more  honorable  and  lovelier  trait,  every 
holier  affection  and  deed.  Their  peculiar  badge  ought 
to  be  a  superior  righteousness.  Their  presence  in  any 
company  or  any  market  ought  to  be  a  presence  of  calmer 
temper,  of  firmer  resistance  against  wrong,  of  greater 
loyalty  to  every  principle  that  lends  stability  to  society, 
— a  presence  of  kinder  forbearance  and  sweeter  com- 
passion, of  manlier  patience  under  suffering  and  of 
clearer  testimony  to  the  suffering  that  redeemed  us  on 
the  cross.  That  is  the  way  the  Church, — which  is  noth- 
ing else  than  the  united  and  organized  fellowship  of 
Christian  souls, — ought  to  "  come  out  and  be  separate." 
Nevertheless,  it  will  be  true, — nay,  all  the  more  mani- 
festly will  it  be  true  for  so  glorious  a  contrast, — that 


IN   THE   FAMILY   OF   CHEIST.  169 

there  is  a  distinction,  or  a  "  coming  out "  ; — that  man- 
kiiad  are  of  two  armies,  under  two  leaders ;  that  out- 
ward decency  cannot  be  taken  for  inward  renewal,  self- 
cultivation  for  the  upward-looking  faith  which  works  by 
love  and  through  Christ  receives  the  Spirit. 

Till  each  individual  soul,  in  the  deliberation  of  a  sol- 
emn election,  has  chosen  to  clear  itself  of  all  entangling 
alliances  with  the  one  of  these  two  opposing  forces,  and 
pledged  itself  to  the  other, — so  passing  out  of  the  natural 
life  into  the  spiritual, — how  can  it  imagine  it  is  safe  ? 
If  God  is  almighty,  His  will  perfect,  and  His  word 
true,  it  cannot  be  safe. 

Both  a  beginning,  then,  and  a  continuing;  both  a 
revolution  and  a  habit ;  both  a  new  principle  and  a  new 
life,  is  this  great  decisive  act  of  the  Christian.  A  com- 
ing out  from  irreligious  associations  is  one  part;  it 
implies  energy  of  purpose  kindled  by  faith.  Being 
separate  implies  the  maintenance  of  the  ground  thus 
taken  against  all  opponents,  whether  they  frown  or 
laugh,  sneer  or  slight,  reason  or  threaten.  "  Come  out" 
from  the  bonds  of  vicious  compliance  and  ungodly 
habit  is  a  call  to  the  courage  and  faith  of  the  awakened 
heart.  "Be  separate"  from  sin  i«  a  command  to  the 
persevering  will.  "  Touch  not "  the  renounced  pollu- 
tion is  an  adjuration  to  the  sanctified  conscience.  And 
these  are  the  three  daily  heroisms  in  the  discipline  of 
the  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ. 

2.  But  we  are  not  left  with  the  severity  of  the  com- 
mandment. To  the  sternness  of  the  law  is  added  after- 
wards the  tenderness  of  grace.  If  man  will  do  his  part, 
God  does  His.  Already,  in  the  renewing,  God  has  done 
more  than  man.  For  it  is  God  that  worketh  within 
His  work,  as  much  "  to  will  as  to  do," — prompting  the 
holy  desires,  and  stirring  the  stagnant  fountain.     "  No 


170  SONS   AND  DAFQHTERS 

man  can  come  to  Me," — can  begin  to  come,  can  so  much 
as  desire  or  resolve  to  "  come  out," — "  except  the  Father 
who  hath  sent  Me  draw  him."  But  now  the  soul,  hav- 
ing turned  its  face  heavenward,  has  got  light  enough  to 
grow  conscious  of  this  in- working  Spirit.  When  that 
dinner  of  husks  is  fairly  ended,  and  the  prodigal's  pen- 
itence has  directed  his  feet  towards  home, — the  first 
form  his  lifted  eyes  see  is  his  father's — meeting  him 
"  while  yet  a  great  way  off."  For  the  wanderer  that 
went  out  sullen  and  rebellious,  there  is  a  home  and  for- 
giveness there.  An  infinite  benediction  falls  on  the 
returning  child ;  you  feel  the  power  of  the  promise :  "  I 
will  receive  you,  and  will  be  a  Father  unto  you,  and 
ye  shall  be  My  sons  and  daughters,  saith  the  Lord 
Almighty." 

This  is  that  fulness  of  acceptance  which  is  reserved 
for  the  favored  hours  of  the  true  believer.  Do  not  be 
ignorant,  brethren,  that  it  is  possible,  that  it  is  reason- 
able, that  it  is  according  to  every  law  of  our  spiritual 
nature  and  the  high  expectations  of  the  Gospel :  never 
to  be  sought  as  a  provision  of  mere  comfort ;  not  to  cast 
any  heart  into  dejection  or  despair  because  God's  time 
for  giving  it,  or  yours  for  knowing  how  to  use  it,  has 
not  yet  fully  come,  but  a  real  state  when  the  character 
is  ripened  for  it,  and  the  providential  conditions  are 
fulfilled.  "Whensoever  that  solemn  choice  we  have  been 
contemplating  has  not  only  been  taken;  when  the 
deliberate  consecration  has  not  only  lifted  the  soul  out 
from  under  the  poor  servitude  to  its  improvident  pas- 
sions ;  but  when  that  entire  submission  has  been  reached 
which  bows  to  the  Lord's  will,  not  for  the  sake  of  any 
rewards,  but  for  His  own  sake,  and  because  the  heart 
has  enough  in  having  Him, — then  does  enter  this  peace 
which  passes  understanding,  and  which  the  world  other- 


m  THE   FAMILY   OF   CHRIST.  171 

wise  knows  nothing  of.  Then  the  Christian  life  does 
grow  cheerful  and  affectionate, — cheerful,  without  losing 
anything  of  its  earnestness, — affectionate,  without  losing 
anything  of  its  reverence.  So  actually  wrote  a  conse- 
crated child  of  pain,  whom  I  knew,  who  had  been  lying 
on  a  bed,  and  in  one  position  on  it,  more  than  twenty 
years,  most  of  that  time  in  keen  distress,  and  there 
rising  into  a  victory  of  faith  where  she  could  say,  "  God 
must  have  loved  me  very  much,  or  He  would  not  have 
brought  me  to  this  life  of  suffering."  Then  God  does 
veritably  speak,  and  the  voice  is,  "  I  will  be  a  Father 
unto  you,  and  ye  shall  be  My  sons  and  daughters,  saith 
the  Lord  Almighty." 

Sons  and  daughters !  What  a  power  of  personal 
endearment  is  lodged  in  that  particularity  of  speech ! 
E^ot  "  children,"  merely,  losing  individual  consolation  in 
the  generality  of  the  family  !  God  uses  names  that  come 
nearer  to  personal  affection,  and  meet  a  personal  want. 
He  calleth  His  own  by  name.  Every  individual  man, 
struggling  under  his  own  load,  combatting  his  own  hard- 
ships, can  say,  "  My  God,  thou  art  my  Father."  Every 
woman,  suffering  under  her  own  untold  trial,  and  pray- 
ing for  rest  out  of  a  sensitive  heart  full  of  misery,  is 
suffered  to  hear  God  promising,  "  Thou  shalt  be  My 
daughter."  And  so  I  have  known  of  such  an  one, 
stricken  with  the  long  sorrow  of  a  dreadful  bereavement, 
and  bowed  down  for  years  in  that  darkness  which  can 
behold  no  pardon  and  no  heaven,  from  which  she  could 
in  no  wise  lift  up  herself,  at  last,  on  hearing  these  strong 
and  tender  syllables  of  the  text,  suddenly  to  be  called 
back  again  to  the  light,  and  to  be  comforted  thenceforth. 
"  Is  it  so  ?  "  said  the  mourner ;  "  has  God,  the  unchange- 
ably True,  said  it  ?  and  shall  I  not  believe  His  word  ? 
Shall  it  not  comfort  me  ?     Shall  I  not  give  all  to  Him, 


172  SONS  AND   DAUGHTEKS 

and  he  His  daughter  ? "  So  the  doctrine  becomes  a  doc- 
trine for  the  heart.  Every  affection  becomes  God's 
cheerful  servant.  The  whole  soul  is  the  filial  instrument 
of  tliat  Father  Almighty. 

"  Almighty."  Mark  the  special  pledge,  secured,  too, 
in  that  word.  It  is  added  now,  as  if  so  boundless  an 
offer  might  be  distrusted.  And  whereas  it  was  the  Lord 
that  said  "  Come,"  it  is  the  Lord  Almighty^  with  His 
Omnipotence  the  guaranty  of  His  promise,  that  says, 
"Ye  shall  be  My  sons  and  my  daughters."  Of  the 
spiritual  power  of  a  communion  so  tender  and  so  holy, 
consciously  established  between  any  soul  and  God,  there 
must  be  distinct,  practical  results  upon  character, — 
confirming,  supporting,  quickening. 

1.  Confirming; — and  chiefly  by  fostering  in  the  heart 
a  keener  abhorrence  of  sin.  Under  the  witnessing  of  that 
Divine  Guest,  impurity,  selfishness,  uncharitableness, 
grow  insupportably  hateful.  If  the  heart  is  ever  recom- 
mitted to  its  old  mastery,  in  any  moment  of  surprise 
or  weakness,  it  rebounds  with  disgust  to  its  duty,  saying 
with  St.  Paul,  "  It  is  no  more  I  that  did  it,"  but  "  the 
former  sin  "  clinging  to  me  and  shaming  me.  Sharper- 
sighted  sentinels  are  set  to  guard  the  secret  avenues 
whereby  passion  used  to  storm  the  conscience.  Watch- 
men are  appointed  to  keep  the  unclean  thing  off  so  far 
from  the  desires  that  the  fingers  cannot  reach  it  if  they 
would.  A  son,  harboring  vile  companions  during  the 
visits  of  the  Infinite,  Parental  Purity,  which  finds  stains 
on  spotless  skies  !  A  daughter,  insulting  the  Father  of 
Eternal  Truth,  who  has  become  her  Father,  by  vanities 
and  deceits ! — the  offence  feels  too  monstrous  now. 
With  every  fresh  backsliding,  a  bolder  resistance  is 
offered,  till  victory  begins  to  lift  its  banners  into  the 
morning  sky. 


IN  THE   FAMILY   OF   CHRIST.  173 

"Then  every  tempting  form  of  sin, 
Awed  by  Thy  presence,  disappears. 
And  all  the  glowing,  raptured  soul, 
The  likeness  it  contemplates  wears." 

2.  Supporting; — by  supplying  heavenly  arms  under 
tlie  agitations  of  sorrow.  If.  God,  who  holds  the  waters 
of  all  afflictions,  like  the  oceans  that  swing  their  waves 
from  continent  to  continent,  in  the  hollow  of  His  hand, 
who  hears  every  cry  wherewith  deep  calls  to  deep  in  that 
unsounded  sea,  the  heart  of  man, — if  this  God,  whose 
pity  enfolds  the  suffering  universe,  and  whose  Spirit  is 
the  Comforter,  calls  me  His  son,  what  are  the  terrors 
that  can  harm  me  ?  On  the  bosom  of  Everlasting  Help 
shall  not  grief  itself  feel  safe  ?  And  even  if  the  present 
agonizing  discords,  or  desolating  separations,  make 
patience  tremble,  will  not  this  indwelling  Father  show 
His  sons  and  daughters  what  one  of  them,  he  who  wrote 
the  "  Holy  Living  and  Dying,"  saw  by  the  vision  of  faith, 
— "  glories  standing  behind  the  curtain,  to  which  they 
cannot  come  but  by  passing  through  the  cloud,  and  being 
wet  by  the  dew  of  heaven  and  the  waters  of  affliction ; — 
days  without  night,  joys  without  sorrow,  society  without 
envying,  possession  without  fear,  charity  without  stain, 
sanctity  without  sin  "  ?  All  consolations  for  the  bereaved 
are  gathered  into  this  one  :  "  I  will  receive  you,  and  will 
be  a  Father  unto  you,  and  ye  shall  be  My  sons  and 
daughters,  saith  the  Lord  Almighty." 

3.  Quickening; — by  fresh  spiritual  communications 
out  of  His  own  fulness,  giving  to  your  growing  holiness 
an  increasing  power  of  life.  Let  all  pretensions  to  piety 
be  brought  to  that  unerring  test.  Let  all  hypocrisy  be 
sifted  by  that  fan  in  the  hands  of  the  Searcher  of  hearts. 
Let  all  sincerity  be  vindicated  and  honored  by  that 
noblest  witness  to  a  living  faith, — holiness  of  life.     No 


174  SONS   AND   DArGHTERS   IN   CHRIST. 

sacramental  professions,  no  imposition  of  official  hands, 
no  temple  ceremonies,  no  repetition  of  a  creed,  can  bring 
a  vintage  from  the  bramble-bush.  It  is  said  that  there  is 
a  pagan  people  in  the  East  who  trample  on  the  cross, 
in  resentment  for  the  unchristian  cruelties  and  robberies 
of  nominal  Christians.  Every  willing  inconsistency  in 
a  disciple  wrongs  the  faith  of  the  Church,  and  so  tram- 
ples on  the  cross.  Think  not  to  recommend  your 
religion  by  bending  it  to  the  low  maxims,  or  accom- 
modating it  to  the  doubtful  practices,  of  an  unbelieving 
world.  Kather  come  out  and  be  separate.  Be  content 
to  drink  of  your  Master's  cup,  and  to  be  baptized  with 
His  baptism.  Abide  in  Him !  And  may  He  abide  in 
you! 

"That  mystic  word  of  Thine,  0  Sovereign  Lord  I 
Is  all  too  pure,  too  high,  too  deep,  for  me. 
Weary  with  striviHg,  and  with  longing  faint, 
We  breathe  it  back  again  in  prayer  to  Thee  I 
Abide  in  us !    O'ershadow,  by  Thy  love, 
Each  half-formed  purpose,  each  dark  thought  of  sin. 
Quench,  ere  it  rise,  each  selfish,  low  desire, 
And  cleanse  our  souls  with  Thy  refining  fire! 
Touch  Thou,  and  tune  each  heart,  0  Hand  Divine  I 
Till  every  note  and  string  shall  answer  Thine." 


ONE  WEAK  SPOT. 

Quinquagesima  Sunday, 

"Yet  lackest  thou  one  thing." — St.  Luke  xviii.  22. 

The  power  of  Christian  truth  is  proved  by  the  thor- 
oughness of  its  action  rather  than  by  the  extent  of 
surface  over  which  its  action  spreads.  It  regards  com- 
pleteness, in  its  spiritual  conquests,  rather  than  width  of 
territory.  Christian  influence  is  essentially  concentra- 
tive,  as  well  as  essentially  diffusive.  It  acts  downward, 
into  society,  as  well  as  abroad,  over  it. 

First  of  all,  it  demands  absolute  control  where  it 
enters ;  and  when  it  moves,  it  moves  always  with  the 
full  weight  of  its  command ;  condensing  the  whole 
strength  of  its  blessing  on  every  point  of  occupation, 
and  accepting  none  but  unconditional  submission.  One 
parable  it  is  true  compares  it  to  leaven, — a  symbol  of 
diffusiveness ;  but  then  leaven  operates  by  changing  or 
converting  the  whole  mass,  through  a  new  element 
reaching  every  particle  in  the  lump.  Another  parable 
likens  it  to  a  tree,  or  mustard, — the  symbol  of  growth ; 
but  then  vegetable  growth  implies  the  presence  of  one 
characteristic  vital  principle,  one  vivifying  sap,  which 
penetrates  every  fibre,  streams  from  root  to  leaf,  and 
regulates,  by  its  own  special  law,  each  step  of  the  pro- 
cess, from  germination  to  maturity. 

Connect  this  general  truth  with  the  particular  train 


176  ONE  WEAK   SPOT. 

of  suggestions  opened  by  those  words  of  Jesus, — "  Yet 
lackest  thou  one  thing."  He  says  to  the  complacent 
man  who  has  come  to  Him  with  such  a  handsome  cata- 
logue of  his  virtues,  "  All  these  are  very  well ;  excellent 
traits;  you  cannot  spare  one  of  them.  You  have  kept, 
you  say,  these  important  commandments  from  your 
youth.  But  it  so  happens,  in  the  complicated  state  of 
your  character,  that  neither  one  of  these  good  qualities, 
nor  even  their  sum  total,  decides  that  you  are  a  right- 
hearted  man,  or  fit  to  be  My  disciple.  That  qu,estion 
will  be  settled  by  another  requirement  which  will  try 
you  in  a  more  decisive  point.  These  other  good  qual- 
ities you  have  claimed  fail  to  furnish  such  a  test ;  they 
happen  to  be  easy  to  you.  So,  now,  I  shall  reach  down 
deeper  into  the  secrets  of  your  soul,  into  your  motives, 
your  hidden  life.  I  shall  select  just  that  one  thing 
which  will  put  your  obedience  to  God  and  your  selfish- 
ness into  a  balance.  Sell  what  you  have  and  give  the 
proceeds  to  the  poor.  This  will  tell  where  your  heart 
is.  If  your  devotion  to  Me  will  stand  that  strain,  you 
are  worthy  to  take  up  My  self-denying  cause, — to  bear 
My  cross,  to  be  called  by  My  name,  to  be  a  mem- 
ber of  My  Church."  l^eed  it  be  argued  before  you, 
my  friends,  that  precisely  what  Christ  says  to  this  He- 
brew youth.  He  says  to  you  and  to  me,  and  to  each  sev- 
eral soul  of  us  all  %  He  wants  no  divided  empire.  He 
desires  no  friendship  that  would  shut  Him  out  from  that 
portioil  of  our  life  which  most  concerns  our  affections. 
He  would  bless  us  with  a  universal  joy,  giving  vigor  to 
every  faculty,  help,  light,  freedom,  and  victory^  to  every 
step  of  the  way,  and  every  effort  to  overcome  the  world. 
"  God  is  love."  And  therefore  it  is  that  He  requires 
the  surrender  of  every  unyielding  passion. 

When  Jesus  tells  us  that  we  cannot  be  His  disciples 


ONE   WEAK   SPOT.  177 

SO  long  as  we  lack  one  thing, — does  He  mean  that  we 
must  have  supplied  every  moral  defect,  must  have 
attained  every  grace,  must  have  vanquished  every  spirit- 
ual enemy,  and,  in  fact,  have  ceased  to  sin, — before  we 
can  be  His  disciples  ?  That  would  be  simply  saying  that 
none  of  us  can  hope  to  be  a  Christian  unless  he  is 
morally  perfect ;  and  that,  of  course,  involves  the  con- 
verse, that  every  true  Christian  is  thus  morally  perfect. 
The  shock  this  statement  gives  to  our  common-sense, 
and  its  manifest  contradiction  of  the  whole  drift  of  the 
New  Testament,  at  once  drives  us  from  any  such  inter- 
pretation. We  find  a  consistent  meaning,  I  suppose,  if 
we  understand  Him  as  declaring  that  no  heart  is  really 
Christianized,  or  converted,  so  long  as  there  is  any  one 
consoiouSj  deliberate^  or  intentional  reservation  from, 
entire  obedience  to  the  Divine  will.  So  that  if  I  say, 
Here  is  one  particular  sin  which  I  must  continue  to 
practise;  all  the  rest  of  my  conduct  I  freely  conform 
to  God's  law,  but  this  known  wrong  I  must  continue 
to  do; — then  I  am  no  Christian.  If  you  single  out 
some  one  chosen  indulgence,  however  secret, — a  dubious 
custom  in  business,  a  fault  of  the  tongue  or  temper, 
— and  placing  your  hand  over  that  reply  to  the  all- 
searching  commandment  of  the  Most  High, — "  This 
I  cannot  let  go ;  this  is  too  sweet  to  me,  or  too  profit- 
able to  me,  or  too  tightly  interwoven  with  my  constitu- 
tional predilections,  or  too  hard  to  be  put  off," — then 
the  quality  of  a  disciple  is  not  in  you.  There  is  a  por- 
tion of  your  being  which  you  do  not  mean,  or  try,  to 
consecrate  to  Heaven.  And  that  single  persistent  of- 
fence vitiates  the  whole  character.  It  keeps  you,  as  a 
man,  as  a  whole  man,  on  the  ^^Z/'-side  or  world-^\&Q^  and 
away  from  Christ's  side.  For  it  not  only  shuts  off  right- 
eousness from  one  district  of  your  nature,  and  so  abridges 

19 


178  ONE   WEAK   SPOT. 

the  quantity  of  your  life,  but  it  inflicts  the  much  more 
radical  damage  of  denying  the  supremacy  of  the  law 
of  righteousness,  and  thus  corrupts  the  quality.  It 
practically  rejects  the  heavenly  rule,  when  that  rule 
crosses  the  private  inclination.  And  that  is  the 
essence  of  rebellion.  The  test-case  is  decided  the 
wrong  way.  Any  common  intelligence  can  see  the 
distinction  between  a  moral  state  like  this,  and  one 
where  the  intention,  the  aim,  the  endeavor,  are  all 
towards  a  perfect  obedience,  because  the  heart  is  right, 
where  the  inmost  love  aspires  Christward, — though  the 
performance  still  comes  mournfully  short,  through  the 
infirmities  of  a  mortal  nature  and  the  lingering  mis- 
chiefs of  a  repented  and  disowned  habit.  That  is  the 
state  of  which  St.  Paul  speaks  so  graphically, — "  The 
evil  that  I  would  not,  that  I  do."  "  It  is  no  more  I  that 
do  it,  but  sin  that  dwelleth  in  me."  In  the  one  case, 
the  shortcoming  is  deplored  and  disowned  the  instant  it 
is  seen.  In  the  other,  it  is  designed  and  provided  for 
beforehand.  One  is  the  falling  helow  the  marh  of  a 
heart  that  has  turned  in  faith  to  the  Master  and  taken 
its  standard  from  Him ;  the  other  is  determinate  trans- 
gression. One  is  a  loyal  follower's  error;  the  other  is 
disloyalty  itself.  One  comes  of  weakness,  the  other  of 
wilfulness.  One  is  the  mistake  of  a  right  minded  sub- 
ject; the  other  is  the  defiance  of  a  rebel. 

We  shall  have  the  distinction  illustrated, — if  it  needs 
illustration, — by  imagining  a  kingdom  under  a  good  king, 
whose  subjects  really  love  him  at  heart,  and  mean  to 
obey  his  laws,  but  fail  sometimes  through  enticements  ; 
and  then  the  same  kingdom  with  a  tribe  lodged  in  the 
fastnesses  of  its  mountains  owning  no  allegiance  in  criti- 
cal emergencies,  obeying  only  when  it  suits  the  fancy, 
disputing  orders   at  will,   and  formidable    enough   to 


ONE    WEAK    SPOT.  179 

nullify  all  organized  national  defence  when  the  coiintiy 
is  assailed  from  abroad.  In  one  case  you  will  say  there 
is  a  strong  and  consolidated  government,  safe  because 
sound.  In  the  other  there  is  anarchy, — the  form  of  sub- 
ordination without  the  power  thereof. 

Be  careful  to  remember  that  this  fatal  retention  of  the 
single  nullifying  sin  is  not  necessarily  brought  to  a  pub- 
lic proclamation.  It  is  much  more  likely  to  nestle  and 
hide  itself  as  far  from  the  house-top  as  possible.  Open 
avowals  of  it  are  extremely  rare,  for  they  belong  only  to 
hardened  and  desperate  offenders.  All  that  is  essential 
to  the  state  supposed  is  that  it  should  be  evident  to  con- 
sciousness. Its  expression  is  commonly  in  that  inarticu- 
late but  most  practical  profession,  the  life. 

The  principle  of  the  distinction  I  have  been  aiming 
to  make  plain  will  help  us  greatly  in  understanding 
several  other  passages  in  the  Bible,  which,  for  want  of  an 
understanding,  have  sounded  either  insupportably  awful 
or  else  unreasonable,  and  so  have  driven  some  to  despair 
and  others  to  unbelief.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  instance 
the  most  unqualified  and  most  appalling  of  them  all. 
St.  James  says  in  his  epistle  :  "  For  whosoever  shall  keep 
the  whole  law,  and  yet  offend  in  one  point,  he  is  guilty 
of  all."  That  is,  whosoever  shall  conform  his  conduct  to 
God's  express  commandment  in  every  other  particular, 
and  yet  willingly  reserve  some  one  district  of  his  life  for 
sin, — some  one  habit,  appetite,  indulgence,  which  he 
knows  that  Divine  command  condemns  as  much  as  the 
rest,  saying  secretly  to  himself,  "  I  will  keep  all  hut 
tliis^'^ — he,  because  of  that  one  wicked  reservation,  affronts 
the  Law-giver,  who  is  the  author  of  one  command  just  as 
much  as  another  ;  shows  himself  to  have  a  heart  radically 
wrong, — unreconciled  at  the  test-point, — and  therefore 
is  in  a  radically  wrong  state,  or  is  "  guilty  of,"  amenable, 


180  ONE   WEAK   SPOT. 

answerable  for,  all.  The  heart  being  impious  at  the  cen- 
tre-point, the  whole  state,  the  whole  man,  is  disordered, 
out  of  harmony  with  Heaven, — irreligious.  This  is  cer- 
tainly a  very  different  thing  from  the  desolating  doctrine 
that  a  single  moral  failure,  in  a  consecrated  soul,  con- 
demns it  to  perdition. 

Light  is  thrown  on  this  day's  collect.  Its  subject  is 
charity,  or  love.  Because  love  is  the  universal  Christian 
principle,  pervading  all  righteousness,  "  the  fulfilling  of 
the  law,"  "  the  very  bond  of  all  virtues,"  therefore  to  be 
without  it  damages  and  diseases  everything :  "  All  our 
doings  are  nothing  worth  "  ;  and  even  he  who  liveth  is 
"counted  dead." 

When  Jesus  spoke  thus  of  one  thing  fatally  lacking  to 
the  Jewish  ruler,  He  spoke  to  us  all.  But  with  this  dif- 
ference :  that  one  subtle  passion  which  spoils  the  whole 
character  for  us  may  not  be  his  passion.  With  him  it 
seems  to  have  been  avarice ;  he  could  not  bear  to  turn 
his  private  property  into  public  charity.  His  religion 
broke  down  just  there  ;  in  other  respects  he  had  done 
admirably  ;  he  had  kept  other  commandments  to  the 
letter, — aye,  to  the  letter ;  not  perhaps  in  the  spirit,  for 
all  true  obedience  has  one  spirit.  But  so  far  his  literal, 
formal  obedience  came,  and  there  gave  out.  Now,  with 
us,  this  "one  thing  lacking"  rnay  he  just  that, — the 
inordinate  love  of  money,  or  if  you  please,  the  lack  of  a 
willingness  to  sacrifice  it  for  higher  interests,  for  the 
heathen's  conversion,  for  the  Church  of  God,  for  human- 
ity, for  spiritual  advancement.  In  commercial  commun- 
ities probably  this  is  likely  to  be,  in  the  greater  number 
of  cases,  the  one  fixed  impiety ;  nor  are  rural  districts 
clear  of  it.  Wherever  it  is,  remember  nothing  w^ill 
attest  the  complete  sway  of  the  Gospel  short  of  a  spirit 
willing  to  meet  that  sweeping  requisition,  "  Go,  sell  all 


ONE   WEAK   SPOT.  181 

that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  thon  shalt  have 
treasure  in  heaven."  Better  enter  into  immortal  life  in 
penniless  poverty  than,  having  houses  or  bank-stock,  to 
be  cast  down,  a  shrivelled  and  shamed  soul,  into  hell. 
But  then  you  may  happen  to  be  so  constituted  that  such 
an  abandonment  of  wealth  would  be  a  very  small  sacri- 
fice,— one  of  the  least  that  could  be  required  of  you ; 
you  are  not  naturally  sordid ;  you  are  more  inclined  to 
be  prodigal ;  and  so  this  would  not  be  a  test-point  with 
you.  But  there  is  a  test-point  about  you  somewhere. 
Perhaps  it  is  pride ;  you  cannot  bear  an  affront ;  you 
will  not  confess  a  fault.  Perhaps  it  is  personal  vanity, 
ready  to  sacrifice  everything  to  display.  Perhaps  it  is  a 
sharp  tongue.  Perhaps  it  is  some  sensual  appetite,  bent 
on  its  unclean  gratification.  Then  you  are  to  gather  up 
your  moral  forces  just  here,  and  till  that  darling  sin  is 
brought  under  the  practical  law  of  Christ,  you  are  shut 
out  from  Christ's  kingdom.  I  have  no  right  to  love 
anything  so  well  that  I  cannot  give  it  up  for  God. 
Christ  does  not  literally  require  every  one  of  us  to  give 
his  possessions  to  the  poor.  If  there  are  some  with 
whom  doing  that  would  be  a  glorious  and  acceptable 
submission  to  the  heavenly  rule,  there  are  others  with 
whom  it  would  be  a  much  sharper  trial,  and  therefore 
the  needed  trial,  to  abandon  a  chosen  course  of  action  or 
study  at  the  command  of  Providence,  or  to  lay  a  beloved 
friend  in  a  grave.  God  knows  where  the  trial  must  be 
applied.  And  we  are  to  know  that  wherever  it  is 
applied,  there  is  the  one  thing  lacking  unless  we  can  say 
"  Thy  will  be  done,"  and  bear  it.  It  may  happen  that 
nothing  in  the  whole  range  of  Christian  character  is  so 
difficult  for  me  as  to  manage  an  irritable  temper,  to  keep 
down  petulant  and  hasty  impulses.  That,  then,  is  the 
test-point  of  my  Christianity.     I  suppose  that  the  entire 


182  ONE    WEAK    SPOT. 

character  of  a  man  may  depend  on  liis  giving  up  the 
selfishness  which  makes  him  regard  his  home  as  a  place 
meant  only  for  his  own  accommodation,  so  that  he  expects 
everything  to  be  done  for  his  own  comfort,  frets  if  the 
whole  household  does  not  wait  on  his  convenience,  and 
yields  nothing,  plans  nothing,  for  the  simple  and  cheerful 
entertainment  of  the  rest;  putting  them  off  with  a  treat- 
ment which,  if  God  were  to  transfer  it  to  him,  would 
grind  his  groaning  heart  with  agonies.  So  exceeding 
broad  is  the  Divine  commandment  that  even  such  an 
unconsidered  shortcoming '  as  this  may  be  the  one  thing 
lacking  that  separates  us  from  Christ. 

It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  human  infirmity,  how 
we  try  to  wink  out  of  our  own  view,  and  crowd  out 
of  other  people's,  this  one  dangerous  and  characteristic 
offence  that  stands  between  us  and  salvation,  instead  of 
frankly  confessing  it,  and,  with  God's  help,  resolutely 
fighting  it  down.  Sometimes  we  attempt  to  conceal  it, 
by  multiplying  our  activity  and  concern  in  other  direc- 
tions, as  if  to  draw  off  attention  by  bustling  works  of 
supererogation  in  that  quarter,  in  order  to  cover  the 
chasm  in  this.  But  there  is  no  such  law  of  moral  equi- 
librium in  the  Divine  statics  as  that.  We  cannot  hire 
the  liberty  to  persevere  in  a  favorite  transgression  by 
paying  a  honus  of  easy  virtues.  Sometimes  persons 
conscious  of  this  one  weak  spot,  and  sensitive  when  it  is 
touched,  parry  the  salutary  censure  by  plunging  into  a 
general  and  not  very  sincere  self-upbraiding.  "  Oh  yesj 
they  are  always  wrong ;  they  never  do  anything  well ; 
they  are  horribly  depraved ;  and  they  will  never  be  able 
to  do  better."  They  submerge  their  actual  fault  in  a 
flood  of  unmeaning  and  angry  deprecations, — all  of  which 
signify  simply  that  you  have  touched  an  actual  disease, 
— and  that  they  would  like  to  push  the  surgery  aside  by 


ONE   WEAK   SPOT.  183 

a  flutter  of  extravagant  confessions.  But  none  the  less 
does  the  cahn  searching  eye  of  the  Judge,  undeceived, 
look  in  on  your  real  shortcoming,  and  say  to  you,  "  Yet 
lackest  thou  one  thing." 

We  are  told  of  the  young  man  that  came  to  Jesus 
and  found  his  single  sin  so  uncompromisingly  exposed 
and  rebuked,  that  he  went  away  sorrowful.  An  eminent 
preacher  has  proposed  a  different  explanation  of  this 
sorrow  from  that  which  our  doctrine  requires.  His 
notion  is,  that  while  the  young  man  had  really  fulfilled 
the  perfect  scheme  of  duty,  and  longed  for  some  loftier 
satisfaction  to  his  affections,  he  was  merely  referred 
back  to  the  stale  and  customary  round  of  moral  habits. 
He  had  exhausted  the  demands  of  conscience,  and  Christ 
offered  him  nothing  beyond.  But  besides  that  this 
forced  hypothesis  is  not  hinted  at  in  the  record, 
while  the  opposite  is  affirmed,  it  treats  the  Saviour  with 
irreverence,  as  if  there  were  some  heights  of  expei'ience, 
or  some  junctures  of  spiritual  perplexity,  which  He  has 
not  resources  to  satisfy.  The  truth  is,  there  was,  in  this 
young  man's  character,  though  generally  so  unexception- 
able,— fair  and  lovely  in  all  besides, — one  unyielding  pas- 
sion clinging  yet,  which  preferred  mammon  to  God, — 
"  much  goods,"  or  a  successful  business,  to  Christ's  self- 
denying  service  and  everlasting  glory.  There  was  one 
reserved  territory  of  disobedience  where  he  had  not  the 
courage  to  apply  the  holy  principles  of  faith — one  enemy 
that  he  did  not  love  Jesus  well  enough  to  conquer. 
Are  any  of  us  partakers  in  his  cowardice  ? 

It  is  a  trutli  which  cannot  be  too  thoroughly  preached, 
that  a  mere  outward  conformity  with  the  moral  law 
cannot  satisfy  the  soul;  first  because  the  faith  of  the 
heart  is  the  indispensable  fountain  of  all  spiritual  life, 
or  true  righteousness,  and  secondly  because  a  perfect 


184  ONE  WEAK   SPOT. 

keeping  of  a  perfect  law  is  impossible,  so  that  the  law 
condemns  us  all  alike,  and  there  is  no  hope  for  any  of 
us  except  in  a  Gospel  of  grace,  or  the  forgiveness  in 
Christ.  Bat  nobody  has  a  right  to  expect  "favor"  till 
he  has  tried  with  all  his  might  to  honor  the  law — till  he 
has  at  least  confessed  its  authority,  owned  that  he  ought 
never  to  cease  trying  to  keep  it,  and  holds  nothing 
knowingly  back.  When  a  man  in  good  faith  has  ac- 
knowledged himself  a  subject  of  the  law,  and  done  his 
best  unreservedly  to  obey  it,  then  he  is  ready  to  come 
under  Gospel  grace.  He  has  failed ;  but  that  does  not 
ruin  him  if  he  repents  of  his  failure.  "  There  is  forgive- 
ness with  Thee, — that  Thou  mayest  be  feared."  But  for 
a  man  who  has  persistently  allowed  himself  in  one  known 
iniquity, — one  unrighteous  practice, — refusing  to  give  it 
u])  because  it  brings  him  gain  or  pleasure, — to  say  "  I 
expect  grace;  I  look  for  pardon;  I  want  to  be  under 
Gospel,  not  law  " ;  this  would  be  the  sophistry  of  a  Phar- 
i«ee.  It  obliterates  Christ's  holy  commandments;  it 
blasphemes  the  Holy  Ghost.  Christ  has  no  encourage- 
ment for  a  faithless  temper  like  this  The  Gospel  does 
not  propose  itself  as  an  easy  system, — easy  in  the  sense 
of  excusing  from  duty.  It  blessedly  redeems  the  earn- 
est souls  who  have  tried  to  do  their  duty,  and,  failing, 
have  cried  for  pity,  for  pardon,  and  for  peace. 

Were  we  not  right  then,  in  the  ground  taken  at  the 
outset,  that  the  power  of  Christianity  over  the  character 
is  proved  by  the  thoroughness  of  its  action  rather  than  by 
the  extent  of  surface  over  which  its  action  spreads  ?  It 
displays  its  heavenly  energy  in  dislodging  the  one  cher- 
ished sin,  in  breaking  down  the  one  entrenched  fortress 
that  disputes  its  sway.  At  the  battle  of  Borodino 
Napoleon  saw  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  victory 
till  he  had  carried  the  great  central  redoubt  on  the 


ONE   WEAK   SPOT.  .  185 

Kussian  line.  Two  hundred  guns  and  the  choicest  of 
his  battalions  were  poured  against  that  single  point, — 
and  when  the  plumes  of  his  veterans  gleamed  through 
the  smoke  on  the  highest  embrasures  of  that  volcano  of 
shot,  he  knew  the  field  was  won.  It  matters  very  little 
that  we  do  a  great  many  things  morally  irreproacliable, 
so  long  as  there  is  one  ugly  disposition  that  hangs  ob- 
stinately back.  It  is  only  when  we  come  to  a  point  of 
real  resistance  that  we  know  the  victory  of  faith  over- 
coming the  world. 

Finally,  our  renewing  and  redeeming  Keligion  de- 
lights to  reach  down  to  the  roots  of  the  sin  that  curses 
us,  and  spread  its  healing  efficacy  there.  It  yearns  to 
yield  us  the  fulness  of  its  blessing ;  and  this  it  knows  it 
cannot  do  till  it  brings  the  heart  under  the  completeness 
of  its  gentle  captivity  to  Christ.  Submission  first ;  then 
peace,  and  joy,  and  love.  "  Jesus  beholding  him,  loved 
him  "  ;  yet  sent  him  away  sorrowing.  How  tender,  and 
yet  how  true !  tender  in  the  sad  affection, — true  to  the 
stern,  unbending  sacrifice  of  the  Cross !  It  is  because 
He  would  have  us  completely  happy  that  He  requires  a 
complete  submission.  "One  thing"  must  not  be  left 
lacking.  "Whosoever  would  enter  into  the  full  strength 
and  joy  of  a  disciple  must  throw  his  whole  heart  upon 
the  altar. 


THE  TOKE  AISTD  BUEDEK  ALKEADY  EASY 
ANB  LIGHT. 

Ash  -  Wednesday, 

"Come  unto  Me,  ...  for  My  yoke  is  easy,  and  My  burden  is 
light."— >S'^.  Matthew  xi.  38,  30. 

It  is  in  the  actual  life  of  most  of  those  who  do 
*'  come  "  just  as  it  is  in  this  startling  figure  of  our  Lord's 
invitation : — there  is  a  conflict  of  opposite  forces.  Con- 
tending elements  of  hardship  and  ease,  of  endurance  and 
relief,  are  strangely  intermingled.  There  is  a  "  yoke." 
And  yet  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  certain  inward 
posture,  the  Saviour  says,  and  some  of  you  no  doubt  have 
found  it  true, — a  Divine  adjustment  or  fashioning  of  the 
neck  to  that  yoke,  which  makes  it  "  easy."  There  is  a 
"  burden  "  :  every  suiferer,  that  is  every  soul  whose  life 
has  been  crippled  by  its  conditions,  every  soul  whose 
love  has  lost  its  object  or  found  no  answer,  every  soul 
whose  day's  poor  performance  has  shamed  its  morning 
vow,  or  in  which  the  law  of  the  members  has  warred 
triumphantly  against  the  law  of  the  mind, — knows  some- 
thing of  the  meaning  of  that  word  "  burden  "  ;  and  yet 
He  who  knows  tells  us  this  weight  can  be  somehow  so 
carried  that  the  very  quality  of  burdensomeness  is  cast  off 
from  it.  Things  do  not  remain  what  they  were  when 
One  Hand  comes  and  touches  them.  Their  very  nature 
is  changed  by  a  wonder-working  energy  of  grace.     So 


THE    YOKE    AND    BURDEN.  187 

that  tliese  words  not  only  convey  to  ns  a  promise,  but 
tliey  become,  in  themselves,  a  kind  of  type  or  picture 
of  a  believer's  conflict  and  victory,  day  by  day. 

There  are,  therefore,  two  things  to  be  regarded : — an 
apparent  contradiction,  and  a  secret  reconciliation. 

Look  a  moment  at  the  apparent  contradiction.  Look 
into  yourselves.  The  very  beginning  of  a  Christian 
consciousness,  or  life  in  the  soul,  is  the  beginning  of  a 
contest  of  desires.  One  combatant  is  already  on  the 
field,  entrenched  there  by  a  hereditary  but  yet  usurping 
pretension.  "  The  heathen  are  gone  up,  O  Lord,  into 
Thine  inheritance," — the  sacred  land  in  the  heart  of 
childhood  ;  and  when  the  Israel  of  your  new  life  comes 
up  by  Sinai,  thundered  at  by  the  commandment,  through 
a  penitential  desert,  and  enters  in,  it  does  not  take  pos- 
session of  the  promise  without  a  siege  and  many  battles. 
Like  the  recovery  of  a  man  almost  dead,  the  recall  of 
the  living  pulse  and  breath  is  more  distressful  than  the 
passive  process  of  dying  was.  Freezing  and  drowning 
men  find  it  harder  to  come  back  to  life  than  to  die. 
N^either  in  the  second  birth  nor  in  the  first  can  the  boon 
of  life  be  had  but  by  anguish.  It  is  a  blessing  to  be 
born  ;  but  the  blessing  is  costly.  It  comes  in  under  a 
"  burden."  For  a  time  the  waking  will  halts,  very  likely, 
in  a  misgiving  whether  the  cost  is  not  too  great  for  the 
blessing,  and  the  burden  intolerable.  Hence  occur  many 
relapses.  You  hear  the  despairing  cry  :  "  Let  us  alone ; 
leave  us  among  the  devils ;  why  come  to  torment  us 
before  the  time  ? "  Every  nearer  approach  to  the  like- 
ness of  Christ  is  attended  witli  a  deeper  sense  of  un- 
worthiness, — which  is  its  "burden."  Every  quickening 
of  sensibility  renders  the  hurt  of  sin  more  painful.  As 
the  spiritual  eye  grows  keen,  the  spots  on  ourselves  grow 
plainer.      The  cross  requires  more  and  more  sacrifice, 


188  THE    YOKE    AND    BURDEN 

— more  of  the  world's  dislike,  its  privations,  its  crucial 
nails  and  thorns.  The  yoke  must  be  put  on  again  and 
again.  The  blessing  justifies  it,  it  is  true  :  glory,  honor, 
immortality, — an  incorruptible  crown  ;  but  it  does  not 
take  away  the  torture.  As  you  know  and  feel  Christ's 
truth  and  love  more  profoundly,  they  will  ask  larger 
oiferings,  of  time,  of  property,  of  ease.  How,  then,  is 
the  "yoke"  "easy"? 

Some  men  say, — and  they  even  say  it  in  Christian  pul- 
pits,— "  It  is  easy  only  as  it  is  to  be  taken  off;  it  can  be 
borne  because  death  will  break  it ;  we  are  to  expect  ease 
hereafter  as  the  offset  for  this  endurance ;  heaven  will 
be  received  in  reversion ;  our  wages  will  be  paid  at 
last."  In  this  place,  however,  Christ  does  not  say  that, 
or  mean  that.  He  always  means  exactly  according  to 
His  words,  in  every  promise  He  makes.  And  here  what 
he  tells  the  whole  sorrowing  and  sinning  and  seeking 
world  is  not  that  His  yoke  is  to  be  taken  off',  or  broken, 
or  that  the  burden  is  to  be  made  up  for  by  a  future 
compensation.  His  doctrine  is  more  immediate,  and 
goes  deeper.  The  yoke  is  to  lie  there  ;  it  must  be  there 
in  order  to  be  an  "  easy  "  yoke.  The  burden  is  not  to 
be  taken  away,  but  is  to  be  felt  as  a  "  light "  burden. 
We  have  here  the  doctrine  of  a  present  blessing  in 
Christ ; — what  He  does  for  His  disciple  in  this  life.  A 
relief,  a  strength,  a  peace  is  possible  here,  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  sufferings.  Peace  enters  the  heart  while 
the  hurt  is  on.  '^  Now  are  we  the  sons  of  God." 
Doubtless  there  is  a  "  Eest  {aa^^aTtafjL6(:)  which  re^ 
mains — tarries — for  the  people  of  God."  But  remem- 
ber also,  "  He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  life,"  already,  and 
if  we  dwell  in  Him  and  He  in  us  we  have  passed  from 
the  real  death  into  that  real  life,  sin  having  no  more 
dominion  over  us.     See  the  connections  of  the  Lord's 


ALREADY    EASY   AND   LIGHT.  189 

language.  It  is  not,  "  Stand  and  look  for  a  salvation 
afar  off;  expect  your  immortality  hereafter;  live  and 
work  as  you  can  gloomily  on  earth,  and  only  hope  for  a 
postponed  union  with  your  living  Head  by  and  by." 
But  it  is,  "  Come  unto  Me  noio^  just  because  you  have  to 
labor  and  are  ,heavy  laden  now.  Here  I  am,  at  your 
side ;  I  have  left  the  glory  I  had,  and  taken  up  your 
aching  flesh  upon  me  for  another  glory,  ^nd  to  this  very 
end,  that  I  might  be  where  you  are,  and  offer  you  a 
present  salvation.  I  do  not  say  there  is  no  added  yoke 
in  coming ;  for  most  men  there  is ;  take  the  yoke  up 
nevertheless ;  I  do  not  say  there  is  no  burden  to  bear ; 
plausible  adventurers  hunting  proselytes  might  tell  you 
that.  I  am  "lowly," — lowly  enough  to  confess  the 
yoke,  and  lowly  enough  to  bear  the  burden  with  you, 
for  you ;  and  therefore  your  "  rest "  shall  be  found 
in  coming^ — "  rest  unto  your  souls."  As  soon  as  you 
begin  to  turn  your  feet  you  will  feel  the  cross,  but  as 
soon  as  you  feel  the  cross  you  will  feel  that  it  is  eased 
for  you.  Pain  will  not  vanish,  but  become  a  privilege. 
Self-denial  will  not  be  annihilated,  but  will  be  welcome. 
A  new  power  will  come.  The  giving  up  oi property  for 
your  Redeemer's  kingdom  will  demand  an  effort  at 
first ;  even  the  tenth  that  belongs  to  Him  will  seem  a 
great  deal ;  but  you  will  take  joyfully,  with  the  saints, 
that  "spoiling  of  your  goods."  Cold  manners  and 
changed  countenances  or  stinging  satires  in  worldly  peo- 
ple will  not  be  pleasant;  but  you  will  feel  somehow 
safer  and  stronger  for  them  on  the  spot.  Come  to  Me, 
then,  from  wherever  you  are,  Matthews  from  the  market- 
place, sons  of  Zebedee  from  the  sea,  Sauls  from  the 
schools,  impetuous  Peters,  and  cool,  moral  Jameses,  and 
contemplative  Johns ;  come,  Marys  of  meditation  and 
Marthas  of  busy  action,  come,  not  for  the  sake  of  being 


190  THE  YOKE  AND  BUEDEN 

exempt  from  discipline  or  care;  but  come  expressly  to 
learn  of  Me  how  to  bear  and  use  them,  and  how  they 
shall  be  transformed  into  holy  helpers,  as  you  walk  at 
their  side." 

"  It  is  difficult,"  said  an  old  thinker  in  the  things  of 
faith,  "  and  yet  not  difficult,  to  be  a  Christian  ;  only  be 
in  earnest,  and  take  not  up  the  Gospel  as  a  trivial  thing, 
but  upon  hoth  thy  shoulders.  Make  not  light  of  thy  load 
for  Christ,  and  Christ  wdll  make  it  light  for  thee." 

Just  before,  our  Lord  shows  us  how  this  wonderful 
comfort  is  apprehended  ; — by  simple  faith, — never  by 
the  dogmatic  understanding, — only  childlike  hearts  being 
clear-sighted  enough  to  read  the  glorious  assurance 
through  the  elaborate  superscriptions  of  human  learning 
and  ambition  :  "  I  thank  Thee,  O  Father,  because  Thou 
hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and 
hast  revealed  them  unto  babes."  The  knowing  men, 
who  may  be  only  fools,  the  clever  calculators  that  never 
learned  to  count  beyond  ninety  years,  are  outwitted  by 
the  youngest  scholars  in  this  school  of  Christ.  "  In 
quietness  and  confidence  shall  be  your  strength.  In 
returning  and  rest,"  O  new-born  and  illuminated  hearts, 
"  shall  ye  be  saved." 

In  other  words, — to  generalize  the  great  Gospel- 
thought, — our  faith  is  for  the  life  that  now  is,  or  else  it 
is  no  faith  to  fit  us  for  the  life  to  come  ;  and  it  works  out 
its  hallowed  alleviations  for  all  the  disquietude  of  these 
laboring  and  heavy  laden  hearts,  not  by  transforming  the 
conditions  of  their  lot,  but,  while  leaving  these  just  as 
they  are,  by  bringing  the  inner  man  into  such  oneness 
of  life  with  the  Master,  that  He,  the  great  burden -bearer 
of  all  our  humanity,  shall  be  their  perpetual  Passover 
and  their  Peace. 

In  this  view,  the  signification  of  the  text  becomes  both 


ALEE  AD  Y  EASY  AND  LIGHT.  191 

more  comprehensive  and  more  striking  when  we  enter 
in  and  observe  that  the  terms  "  yoke  "  and  "  burden  "  do 
not  follow  one  another  by  any  careless  accident,  but  each 
relates  and  answers  to  the  two  forgoing  terms  "labor" 
and  "  heavy  laden."  "  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labor 
and  are  heavy  laden."  "  Yoke  "  means  labor.  "  Bur- 
den "  means  suffering.  A  "  yoke  "  is  a  symbol  of  active, 
tiresome  toil.  A  "burden"  is  that  which  hinders 
strength  and  drags  it  down.  Take  these  two  thoughts 
to  the  two  great  Biblical  dispensations  of  Law  and  Love. 
Each  personal  history  among  us  reflects  that  solemn 
order  of  Sinai  and  Gethsemane.  Sum  up  the  evils  of 
your  old  life  which  formed  the  "  yoke  "  which  hurt  you, 
and  their  name  is  self-will, — the  active  principle  of  anti- 
Christ.  This  was  the  matter  of  our  Lord's  first  temp- 
tation. Sum  up  the  materials  of  that  dull  "  burden " 
which  sinks  the  soul  the  more  the  more  it  accumulates, 
and  its  name  is  hopeless  sorrow.  This  was  the  darkness 
about  the  garden  and  the  cross.  See  now  what  a  spirit- 
ual Saviour  does  for  those, — the  wide  world  over  and  in 
every  house, — who  are  weary  of  the  yoke  and  heavy 
laden  under  the  burden.  Christ's  "  yoke  "  is  submission 
to  His  will,  ceasing  from  our  own  ;  Christ's  burden  is 
simply  forgetting  all  else  in  Him,  or  rather  holding  all 
else  as  cheap  and  transient  compared  with  Him.  The 
whole  strain  of  the  truth  falls,  therefore,  on  that  word 
"  My."  Whose  yoke,  whose  burden,  is  the  only  question. 
It  is  because  it  is  Christ's  that  it  is  easy  or  light. 
What  is  borne  for  Him  is  not  like  other  pains  or  losses. 
The  sons  and  daughters  of  His  afflicting,  who  come 
bending  unto  Him,  are  the  privileged  spirits  who  take 
their  sufferings  as  love-tokens  that  He  remembers 
them  still,  has  not  left  them  to  their  folly,  but  means 
by  all  means  to  number  them  with  His  saints  in  glory 


192  THE   YOKE   AND   BURDEN 

everlasting.  The  child  you  lost;  the  life  plan  that 
failed ;  the  fortune  that  dissolved  ;  the  invalid  years  in  a 
sick  chamber ;  the  hidden  thorn  that  stung  your  side 
while  -^ovlX  face  smiled  from  pride  or  shame, — was  a 
sign  that  Christ  would  not  leave  you  to  yourself,  but 
knew  better  than  you  did  how  to  bring  you  to  the 
deeper  blessedness  and  nobler  freedom  of  the  souls  that 
suffering  makes  perfect.  You  will  seek  no  further,  but 
unto  Him  alone.  The  legal  bondage  did  hurt ;  the  angel 
of  the  Lord  took  you  from  your  flesh-pots  and  your  fetters 
together ;  and  Achor,  the  valley  of  your  trouble,  became 
your  avenue  to  liberty  and  your  "  Door  of  Hope."  So 
exclaims  great  St.  Bernard,  "  What  can  be  lighter  than 
a  burden  which  takes  our  burdens  away ;  and  a  yoke 
which  bears  up  the  bearer  himself?  " 

There  is  a  fine  passage,  in  the  uninspired  Hebrew 
writings  called  the  Sohar,  which,  like  a  kind  of  side-light, 
sets  this  metaphor  of  the  yoke  into  singular  spiritual 
beauty.  There  too  the  "  yoke "  of  the  heavenly  king- 
dom is  referred  to,  and,  as  if  in  a  prophetic  figure 
of  the  evangelic  truth,  the  "  Thephillim,"  which  are 
"  the  fringes  of  the  garments  of  prayer,"  are  represented 
as  the  yoke  by  which  God  binds  Israel  to  Himself. 
"  How  beautiful,"  says  this  Kabbinical  Scripture,  ^'  is 
their  neck  who  bear  the  yoke-robe  of  Jehovah's  pre- 
cepts ! "    "  Garments  of  praise  for  the  spirit  of  heaviness." 

No  Scripture  teaches  us  that  this  easing  and  lightening 
of  the  Christian  life  shall  be  completed  at  once.  The 
learners  in  that  often  sad  but  blessed  school,  even  though 
sitting  solitary,  with  pale  faces,  nerveless  limbs,  and 
tears  in  their  eyes,  will  find  "  rest "  flowing  in,  not  in 
violent  floods,  but  as  the  dawn  trembles  into  the  sky,  by 
gradual  and  almost  imperceptible  increments  and  risings 
of  the  light.     Gradually,  but  steadily,  a  tranquil  faith 


ALREADY    EASY   AOT)   LIGHT.  193 

sets  up  its  unseen  pillars  of  power  beneath  and  within 
those  hanging  heads  and  feeble  knees,  till  the  whole 
body  of  character  is  built  up,  by  this  edifying  submission, 
a  spiritual  house.  Gradually,  but  steadily,  the  blood 
streams  back  into  the  veins ;  and  it  is  not  nature's 
blood,  but  is  redder  and  richer  and  sweeter  blood  than 
that,  as  if  the  very  sweetness  and  life  of  the  "  precious 
blood  "  were  in  it,  out  of  the  heart  of  Jesus,  King  at 
once  and  Lamb,  who  is  the  Life  of  every  Christian  that 
lives. 

Another  Ash-Wednesday  has  come.  It  speaks  of 
yoke  and  burden,  of  ashes  and  shadows,  of  the  cross.  To 
some  of  those  who  will  keep  Lent  outwardly  it  will,  no 
doubt,  be  yoke  and  burden  both,  and  nothing  more, — 
unwelcome,  unrelieved.  I  need  not  tell  you  who  they 
are.  Others  will  find  the  added  service  and  the  unusual 
restraint  easy  and  light,  because  through  them  they  will 
gain  the  help  they  need,  the  deliverance,  the  purifying, 
the  closer  likeness  to  their  Lord,  the  spiritual  liberty 
they  long  for.  Even  these  cost  something.  Self-exam- 
ination and  penitence  and  crucifixion  of  the  flesh  are  not 
joyous  exercises,  are  not  meant  to  be.  All  our  noblest 
enlargements  of  power  and  of  peace  are  sacrificial :  there 
is  something  hard  to  do,  or  hard  to  bear, — human  nature 
being  what  it  is.  "We  need  voluntary  acts  of  self-denial, 
whether  to  bring  down  and  humble  pride,  to  chasten 
fleshly  propensities,  to  clear  the  soul  for  prayer,  to  pro- 
vide larger  charities  for  Christ's  missions  and  His  poor, 
or  to  honor  God  by  a  simple  act  of  obedience  to  His  word. 
The  particular  shape,  the  needed  yoke,  may  not  be  the 
same  for  us  all,  and  it  is  not  defined.  One  form  of  it, 
the  Bible  certainly  declares,  is  fasting,  and  that  is  to  be 
used.  How  many  need  to  lay  a  cross  on  their  lips, — to 
"  fast  from  strife  and  debate,"  from  slander,  idle  words, 

18 


194  THE  YOKE  AND  BUEDEN 

backbiting  !  Here  are  the  ashes  we  are  to  sprinkle,  and 
the  sackcloth  we  are  to  wear.  The  world  about  yon 
calls  this  a  weariness,  and  a  disagreeable  burden ;  it  will 
even  despise  and  ridicule  your  scruples  if  it  can.  Christ, 
your  Saviour,  with  the  cross  on  His  own  shoulders,  meets 
you  just  here,  and  faces  the  world  with  you.  He  says, 
encouragingly  and  comfortingly,  "  Yes ;  here  is  a  yoke, 
and  here  is  a  burden.  At  first,  they  will  look  and  feel 
to  you  somewhat  as  they  do  to  the  world's  people,  but 
not  always.  As  soon  as  you  feel  them  to  be  My  yoke 
and  My  burden,  they  will  grow  lighter  and  easier  every 
day." 

In  the  Greek  word  of  the  evangelist  for  "  easy  "  there 
is  a  concealed  sense  of  "  useful."  The  yoke  is  eased  if  by 
it  you  help  other  men.  Lent  is  for  human  kindnesses, 
neighborly  sympathy,  family  tenderness.  Learn  in  it  to 
love  the  brotherhood,  to  visit  the  poor,  though  they  are 
filthy  and  ungrateful,  as  your  Master  did.  Hate  nothing 
so  much  as  hatred,^dropping  every  grudge  and  every 
revenge,  every  bitter  or  cruel  vestige  of  the  old  satanic 
life,  out  of  your  heart,  forgiving  even  them  that  will  not 
forgive.  Live  fairly  and  generously  with  men.  Sub- 
mission, or  piety,  to  God  is  never  perfect  without 
integrity  to  your  neighbor.  The  Eastern  water-carriers 
bear  the  burden  of  the  bucket  most  easily  and  safely, 
they  say,  when  they  walk  uprightly.  God  makes  the 
path  of  obedience  to  Himself  to  be  the  path  of 
honesty  and  sweet  temper  and  loving-kindness  to  His 
children.  Let  thine  eyes  look  right  on,  and  thine  eye- 
lids straight  before  thee.  Then  it  will  prove  that  you 
are  blessed  children  of  the  Father.  You  walk  at  large, 
like  sons  of  God.  The  road  of  duty  will  still  be  narrow, 
but,  travelling  in  it,  you  will  breathe  the  immortal  air, 
and  every  deepening  breath  will  be  an  inspiration  of  the 


ALREADY   EASY   Atn>   LIGHT.  196 

Life  eternal.  Your  daily  landscape  will  be  the  scenery 
of  both  worlds, — all  things  yours,  because  ye  are  Christ's, 
and  Christ  is  God's. 

"  Behold,  I  will  allure  her,  and  bring  her  into  the  wil- 
derness, and  speak  comfortably  unto  her.  And  I  will 
give  her  vineyards  from  thence,  and  the  valley  of  Achor 
for  a  door  of  hope ;  and  she  shall  sing  there,  as  in  the 
days  of  her  youth,  and  as  in  the  day  when  she  came  up 
out  of  the  land  of  Egypt." 


THE  THROKG  AND  THE  TOUCH. 

First  Bundmj  in  Lent, 

"  Staito  in  the  gate  of  the  Lord's  house,  and  proclaim  there  this 
word,  and  say,  Hear  the  word  of  the  Lord,  all  ye  of  Judah,  that 
enter  in  at  these  gates  to  worship  the  Lord.  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of 
hosts,  the  God  of  Israel,  Amend  your  ways  and  your  doings,  and  I 
will  cause  you  to  dwell  in  this  place.  Trust  ye  not  in  lying  words, 
saying,  The  temple  of  the  Lord,  The  temple  of  the  Lord,  The  temple 
of  the  Lord,  are  these.  For  if  ye  thoroughly  amend  your  ways  and 
your  doings;  if  ye  thoroughly  execute  judgment  between  a  man  and 
his  neighbor;  if  ye  oppress  not  the  stranger,  the  fatherless,  and  the 
widow,  and  shed  not  innocent  blood  in  this  place,  neither  walk  after 
other  gods  to  your  hurt:  then  will  1  cause  you  to  dwell  in  this  place, 
in  the  land  that  I  gave  to  your  fathers,  forever  and  ever." — Jere- 
miah vii.  2-7. 

"And  Jesus  said.  Who  touched  Me?  When  all  denied,  Peter  and 
they  that  were  with  Him  said.  Master,  the  multitude  throng  thee  and 
press  Thee,  and  sayest  Thou,  Who  touched  Me?  And  Jesus  said. 
Somebody  hath  touched  Me :  for  I  perceive  that  virtue  is  gone  out  of 
Me."— >S^.  l^U  viii.  45,  46. 

There  is  a  common  truth  belonging  to  both  these  two 
passages  which  are  so  different  in  the  language,  and  are 
taken  from  parts  of  Scripture  so  far  apart.  I  believe 
that  the  placing  of  them  together  will  help  give  that 
great  doctrine  more  distinctness,  put  emphasis  upon  it, 
and  make  it  easier  to  remember. 

In  the  first  passage,  occuring  in  this  morning's  first 
lesson,  under  a  vivid  picture  of  a  scene  at  the  door  of 
the  old  temple,  the  prophet  searches  out  a  moral  danger 


THE  THEONG  AND  THE  TOUCH.  197 

that  is  apt  to  accompany  all  public  religious  observances. 
The  Spirit  of  God,  acquainted  with  these  perils,  and  de- 
termined to  break  them  up,  puts  him  there,  and  inspires 
him  with  the  clear-sightedness  and  courage  to  strike 
straight  home  at  the  popular  delusion.  Standing  at  the 
gate  he  sees  a  multitude  of  men  crowding  in  to  go 
through  the  forms  of  worship.  He  knows  that  they  have 
just  come  from  the  selfish  practice,  in  their  markets, 
fields,  streets  and  houses,  of  injustice,  cruelty  to  the 
weak,  overreaching  "  the  stranger,  the  fa^erless  and  the 
widow,"  of  every  kind  of  social,  commercial,  political, 
and  ecclesiastical  falsehood, — for  he  goes  on  to  specify 
all  these, — and  what  is  a  great  deal  worse,  that  they  are 
privately  intending  to  go  back  to  the  same  kinds  of 
meanness  and  outrage  after  the  prayers  and  sacrifices 
are  over.  He  also  sees  that  the  moment  their  want  of 
integrity  is  pointed  out,  they  will,  after  the  Pharisaic 
fashion,  undertake  to  throw  over  it  the  screen  of  a 
religious  profession.  They  will  answer,  at  every  rebuke 
of  their  immorality,  "  The  temple  of  the  Lord,  The 
temple  of  the  Lord,  The  temple  of  the  Lord,"  as  if  they 
would  make  up,  by  the  threefold  repetition  and  noise  of 
their  zeal,  for  their  hollow-heartedness.  And  so,  having 
it  for  his  business  as  a  prophet  of  God  to  denounce 
such  corruption  everywhere,  without  apology  for  his 
Divine  commission,  without  arguing  the  matter,  without 
any  round-about  or  imbecile  phraseology,  he  goes  to  the 
point  at  once,  and  begins,  "  Trust  ye  not  in  lying  words  : 
amend  your  ways  and  your  doings." 

The  great  instructive  fact  on  which  attention  is  to  be 
fij^ed  is  this :  that  out  of  the  multitude  of  persons  who 
enter  the  sanctuary,  many  have  only  a  formal,  external, 
and  ostensible,  not  a  substantial,  sympathy,  or  actual  con- 
cern, with  the  holy  Realfty  which  is  there  embodied 


198  THE  THBONG   AND  THE    TOUCH. 

and  presented.  They  imagine  that,  in  some  strange 
way,  the  temple-roof  is  to  shield  or  excuse  their  allowed 
neglect  of  practical  obedience  to  God's  commandment. 
They  throng  the  visible  courts,  press  the  material  build- 
ing, but  without  touching,  in  living  faith,  the  sacred 
Presence,  the  life-giving  hand  of  the  Holy  One  who 
inhabits  it. 

Turn  now  to  the  other  passage.  It  is  a  distant  scene ; 
— distant  in  place,  for  it  is  up  in  one  of  the  open  high- 
ways of  Galilee,  instead  of  at  the  temple  in  the  old 
Zion  ; — "  a  greater  than  the  temple  is  here,"  the  living 
and  incarnate  Christ  of  whom  the  tabernacle  of  the 
desert  and  the  former  and  latter  house  at  Jerusalem,  in 
their  bravest  glory,  and  all  the  prophets  themselves, 
were  but  dim  prefigurations.  It  is  distant  in  time  six 
hundred  years.  A  different  tone  and  color  run  through 
the  narrative.  There  is  more  tenderness,  more  personal 
feeling,  a  plainer  working  of  the  power  of  faith,  as  befits 
the  healing  and  gracious  spirit  of  the  new  dispensation 
of  love.  And  yet  the  same  old  human  elements,  the 
same  two  sorts  of  persons,  with  the  same  sharp  line 
between  them,  are  all  there ;  for  neither  human  nature 
nor  its  temptations  are  among  the  things  that  are  much 
altered  by  time.  Here  too  a  multitude  throng  and  press 
a  sacred  spot.  It  is  the  spot  where  Jesus  of  E"azareth 
stands,  and  it  is  made  sacred  by  His  blessed  feet.  So 
many  are  the  people  that  when  Jesus,  perceiving  by  His 
quick,  mysterious  inward  sense  that  one  among  them  has 
come  with  an  entirely  different  heart  from  the  rest, 
inquired,  "  Who  touched  Me  ? "  Peter  and  others  won- 
dered at  Him,  saying,  "Master,  the  multitude  throng 
Thee  and  press  Thee,  and  say  est  Thou,  Who  touched 
Me?"  The  answer  of  Christ  draws  again  the  deep 
and  sharp  discrimination  between  those  that  are  only  out- 


THE  THRONG  AND  THE   TOrCH.  199 

wardlj  and  formally  with  Him,  and  those  that  in  a  wholly 
different  sense  are  of  Him.  "  Somebody  hath  touched 
Me."  That  answer  divides  one  person  there  from  all  the 
indifferent  crowd  following  on,  as  an  idle  crowd  always 
will,  after  any  new  wonder,  from  curiosity  or  self-inter- 
est ;  and  it  sets  her  all  apart  by  herself, — half  trembling 
at  her  detection,  half  rejoicing  that  she  is  not  wholly 
overlooked.  Here  was  a  living  creature  whose  life  was 
wasting  in  her  veins.  My  friends,  there  is  a  deeper  sig- 
nification in  our  Lord's  miracles  on  human  bodies  than  a 
mere  remedy  for  physical  disorder.  They  mean  much 
more  than  the  quieting  of  a  little  aching  flesh,  or  the 
lengthening  out  of  a  few  mortal  years.  The  maladies 
the  Saviour  healed  on  earth  were  images  and  symbols. 
His  wonders  of  restoration  were  only  types  of  the 
diviner  cures  He  wrought  on  paralytic  consciences,  on 
leprous  sensibilities,  on  the  halting  purpose,  the  blind 
faith,  the  lame  will,  the  consumptive  charity.  It  will  go 
to  the  very  heart  of  the  matter,  then,  if  we  can  see  just 
what  it  was  in  the  woman  that  made  the  religious  differ- 
ence between  her  and  the  multitude  around  her.  That 
difference  is  of  vital  moment  to  every  soul.  Peter  said, 
"  The  multitude  throng  Thee  and  press  Thee  "  ;  "  Jesus 
said,  Somebody  hath  touched  Me."  What  is  it  merely 
to  come  near,  and  what  is  it  to  "  touch "  the  Giver  of 
eternal  life  ?  Among  us,  men  and  women  of  this  day, 
what  is  the  act  on  our  part  that  will  carry  us  over  the 
separating  space  between  the  outward  presence  and  the 
real  fellowship  or  participation  with  Him  ? 

The  woman  reached  out  her  hand  and  touched  the 
Saviour's  garment.  What  was  it  that  moved  her  hand? 
She  believed.  But  in  what  did  she  believe  ?  Not  in 
herself,  not  in  the  motion  of  her  arm,  not  that  she  was 
doing  anything  that  was  an  equivalent  for  the  cure,  or 


200  THE  THEONG  AND  THE  TOUCH. 

would  purchase  it ;  nor  yet  did  she  believe  that  by  stand- 
ing aloof  and  waiting  awhile  till  she  was  partly  restored, 
made  stronger  or  more  presentable,  by  some  skill  of  her 
own,  she  should  be  more  likely  to  get  the  benefit  desired; 
nor  had  she  any  theory  whatever  about  the  method  in 
which  the  curative  power  was  to  take  effect.  You  do  not 
find  in  her  clear  and  urgent  sense  of  need  that  strange  in- 
verting of  all  reason  that  we  so  often  see  in  men  when  they 
hesitate  about  coming  to  seek  heavenly  grace  in  Christ's 
Church,  pleading  that  they  are  "  not  good  enough,"  not 
strong  enough,  healthful  enough,  to  be  blessed  by  it. 
The  soldier  after  the  battle,  wounded  and  sick,  blood- 
stained and  feverish,  creeps  along  the  hot  and  dusty  road, 
longing  only  to  die  under  the  old  home-tree,  and  under 
the  breath  of  a  mother's  lips.  He  comes  to  a  hospital, 
and  sees  it  written  over  the  door,  "  "Whosoever  will, 
let  him  come."  Does  He  creep  back,  pleading  that  He 
is  not  well  enough  to  go  in  and  be  healed  ?  What  then 
did  the  woman  believe  ?  She  believed  that  she  was  to 
receive  something,  a  real  blessing,  from  Christ.  This 
was  what  distinguished  her,  in  her  humility  and  obscur- 
ity, from  the  sentimental  crowd  around  her.  This  was 
that  in  her  wjiich  was  not  in  them.  They  all  travelled 
on  in  the  highway  together,  talked  about  Christ,  were 
interested  in  Him  in  various  ways,  discussed  His  origin 
and  nature,  hoped  that  some  good  would  come  of  Him 
to  the  nation.  They  thought  it  prudent  to  be  in  the 
company  of  a  miraculous  power,  able  to  feed  or  heal 
them,  in  case  there  should  be  occasion  for  His  help ;  and 
so  they  took  some  pains  to  keep  Him  in  sight.  Word 
for  word,  brethren,  these  phrases  describe  what  uncounted 
multitudes  now  are  ready  to  do,  when  the  Gospel  and 
Church  of  Christ  call  to  them.  But  the  woman  Relieved 
that  she  should  personally  receive  new  life  from  Him. 


THE  .THRONG    AND   THE    TOUCH.  201 

She  knew  slie  needed  it ;  she  knew  she  had  nothing  to  buy- 
it  with, — for  she  had  spent  all  her  living  on  physicians, 
and  could  not  be  healed  of  any,  but  rather  grew  worse. 
Most  graphic  history  of  how  many  hearts  !  She  believed 
that  she  could  have  that  new  life  by  a  touch.  The 
reaching  out  of  her  hand  was  an  expression  of  that  faith. 
Another  signal  might  probably  have  done  just  as  well. 
In  other  cases  a  prayer  was  as  effectual.  But  there  must 
have  been  two  things :  the  faith  that  she  should  receive 
the  benefit,  and  some  act  to  embody  that  faith  and  bring 
the  benefit  home.     With  faith,  action. 

It  is  an  almost  equally  significant  part  of  the  inter- 
view that  her  faith,  instead  of  being  perfect  yet,  had 
some  intellectual  mistakes  clinging  to  it.  Thus  she 
evidently  supposed  she  could  obtain  the  cure  without 
Christ's  knowing  of  her  application,  or  putting  forth 
any  conscious  exercise  of  His  will.  She  meant  to  keep 
herself  hid,  probably  from  so  respectable  a  motive  as 
natural  difiidence.  It  was  no  intention  of  hers, — as  it 
never  can  be  of  any  true  confessing  Christian, — to  dis- 
tinguish herself  from  the  rest.  She  was  not  forward  to 
make  "  a  profession  of  religion."  "Would  that  our  Church 
language  might  exchange  that  ostentatious  phrase  for 
the  better  one, — the  confession  of  Christ !  Probably  her 
idea  was, — like  what  has  often  been  held  as  one  of  the 
elements  of  superstition,  especially  in  the  East, — that  a 
kind  of  magical  charm  charged  with  some  sanative  eflS- 
cacy  encircled  this  miraculous  person ;  that  the  border 
of  His  garment  was  the  channel  of  the  healing  energy, 
and  hence  that  she  had  only  to  put  her  finger  on  it  to  be 
made  whole.  She  was  wrong  as  to  the  mode.  But  did 
this  intellectual  misconception,  as  to  the  mere  vehicle 
by  which  the  blessed  power  was  transmitted,  spoil 
her  faith,  or  forfeit   the   cure  ?     On   the   contrary,  the 


THE  THRONG   AND  THE    TOUCH. 

Saviour  patiently  and  gently  separates  the  substa/nce 
of  the  faith  from  the  erroneous  fancies  impressed  upon 
it  by  a  weak  brain  or  a  false  education ;  He  takes  pains 
to  disabuse  her  and  all  about  her  of  the  superstitious 
imagination,  by  showing  them  that  the  cure  was  not 
wrought,  and  could  not  be,  without  His  conscious  and 
consenting  will  answering  her  application, — "  I  perceive 
that  virtue  is  gone  out  of  Me," — and  grants  her  desire. 
As  He  always  read  the  thoughts  of  both  Pharisees 
and  penitents  alike,  as  He  marked  the  concealed 
discipleship  in  the  guileless  heart  of  E'athaniel  under 
the  fig-tree,  so  here  He  depends  on  no  outward  expres- 
sion to  tell  Him  the  soul's  prayer,  and  yet  He  requires  it 
for  the  disciple's  sake.  And  in  the  same  goodness  now 
He  is  ever  gathering  and  drawing  saved  souls  to  Him- 
self,— thanks  to  His  great  power, — wherever  His  name 
is  heard,  even  though  there  hang  about  their  honest 
and  true  trust  in  Him  many  a  poor  shred  of  misbelief, 
many  a  badge  of  mistaken  systems,  many  a  paltry  rem- 
nant of  traditional  illusion.  It  is  a  comfortable,  Catholic 
encouragement  that  He  gives  us, — in  the  prevalence  of 
so  many  erratic  devices  of  the  theological  mind,  and 
so  many  crude  additions  to  the  energetic  simplicity 
of  the  Truth, — that  mistakes  of  opinion  about  methods 
of  grace  do  not  choke  the  channels  of  grace  itself,  or  bar 
the  gate  of  heaven. 

But  now  there  comes  forward  another  aspect  of  churchly 
doctrine,  bringing  with  it  a  new  obligation.  Why  does 
Christ  draw  forward  this  believing  follower  from  her 
bashful  retirement,  and  insist  on  her  declaring  herself 
in  the  presence  of  the  multitude?  The  cure  was 
wrought ;  the  faith  had  gained  its  object,  and  its  mistake 
had  been  corrected;  the  receiver  of  the  blessing  was 
creeping  away  through  the  crowd,  not  ungrateful,  but 


THE  THRONG  AND  THE  TOUCH.  203 

unrecognized  and  unobserved.  Why  should  she  not  be 
suffered  to  retain  her  humble  seclusion  ?  For  the  reason, 
doubtless,  that  her  anxiety  for  herself  took  just  so  much 
from  loyalty  to  her  Lord.  It  is  a  principle  of  God's 
kingdom,  and  a  part  of  God's  command,  that  a  confes- 
sion before  men  shall  accompany  the  believing  of  the 
heart.  If  anybody  could  be  excused,  it  would  seem 
that  she  might  be.  But  there  is  no  exception,  none ; 
none  for  the  proudest  man,  none  for  the  weakest  woman. 
Hitherto  her  offering  is  incomplete ;  she  has  brought  her 
secret  faith,  but  not  herself;  and  true  faith  must  keep 
nothing  back  that  the  Lord  requires.  Men  cannot  say, 
"  My  religion  is  my  own  affair  ;  it  is  only  a  thing  between 
myself  and  my  Maker ;  it  is  entirely  an  inward  and  invisi- 
ble relation  to  Him,  and  so  I  am  satisfied  in  my  private 
feeling  that  it  is  there,  no  more  can  be  demanded  of 
me."  They  cannot  hold  that  ground ;  because  the  duty 
of  open  confession  is  as  clearly  enjoined  in  Scripture 
as  it  is  illustrated  in  every  sound  scriptural  example. 
The  fact  that  there  is  a  faithless  multitude,  making  a 
merit  of  formal  professions,  glossing  their  worldliness 
by  a  pious  cant  of  "  The  temple  of  the  Lord,"  and  screen- 
ing their  unrighteousness  under  observances,  does  not 
affect  a  whit  the  call  of  sincere  believers  to  acknowledge 
whose  they  are  and  by  whom  they  are  healed.  "  And 
when  the  woman  saw  that  she  was  not  hid,  she  came 
trembling,  and  falling  down  before  Him,  she  declared 
unto  Him,  hefore  all  the  people  for  what  cause  she  had 
touched  Him,  and  how  she  was  healed  immediately." 
Then  the  Lord  uses  for  her  encouragement  a  term  of 
endearment  he  had  not  spoken  before :  "  Daughter,  thy 
faith  hath  made  thee  whole."  Her  faith  had  made  the 
occasion, — doing  it  mediately ;  His  Divine  power  had 
made  the  cure, — doing  it  directly.     Faith  is  the  con- 


204  THE   THRONG   AND   THE    TOUCH. 

ditional  cause ;  Christ  himself  is  the  efficient,  energetic 
cause.  And  the  acknowledgment  of  Him  is  the 
signal  of  the  final  blessing  which  then  falls  in  a  ben- 
ediction from  His  lips :  "  Go  in  peace." 

What  you  are  to  make  this  morning's  lesson  stamp 
ineffaceably  on  your  hearts, — shaping  it  into  clear  out- 
lines,— is  the  deep  distinction  between  mere  pressing 
about  Christ,  and  touching  Him  ;  between  resting  in  the 
apparatus  of  salvation,  and  laying  hold  of  it  with  your 
hands;  between  trusting  in  the  material  temple,  and 
clinging  with  a  closeness  of  heart  that  neither  life  nor 
death  can  separate  to  the  living  Rock.  You  honor  the 
place  of  your  worship ;  that  is  well.  But  how  unreal  and 
shallow  it  all  would  be, — how  false  and  foolish  we  should 
be  with  one  another, — if  this  should  prove  to  be  all  or 
the  chief  part  of  our  religion !  Why,  it  would  double 
your  condemnation,  and  mine.  Would  that  the  life  of 
every  member  of  the  body  of  Christ  were  so  lifted 
above  the  world,  so  triumphant  over  it,  so  visibly  given 
to  the  Church  and  so  inwardly  to  Christ,  so  self-renounc- 
ing and  so  holy,  that  your  completed  faithfulness  would 
take  the  message  out  of  our  weak  lips  and  proclaim  it  in 
living  characters  to  your  neighbor.  It  oppresses  one  to 
remember  that  here  is  a  reality  of  infinite  majesty  and 
beauty  transcending  all  our  conceptions  of  what  is  glo- 
rious, enough  to  inspire  with  enthusiasm  every  breast 
that  breathes,  so  grand  and  lovely  in  its  attraction  that 
it  would  seem  only  to  need  to  be  held  up  as  it' really  is 
to  win  every  heart  to  the  Cross  forever, — and  yet  that  so 
many  of  us  still  go  on  chasing  bubbles,  fretting  with 
care,  scraping  together  accumulations  which  if  they  are 
not  all  used  for  Christ  are  worth  not  a  particle  more 
than  ant-hills  on  the  sand.  The  very  crimes  and  license 
of  the  age,  daily  published,  ought  to  arouse  us,  sending 


THE   THRONG   AND   THE    TOUCH.  205 

IIS  witli  heartier  prayers  and  more  solemn  circumspection, 
in  this  sacred  season,  to  the  altars  of  God  ; — nay  more,  to 
the  hand,  to  the  heart,  of  Christ.  It  might  appear  to 
you,  at  times,  as  if  the  preacher's  chief  aim  were  to 
persuade  you  to  an  outward  confession,  or  a  pressing 
into  the  gates.  But  no,  that  urgency  is  only  because, 
without  that,  the  higher  duties  are  never  done,  and  the 
consecration  is  never  complete  You  may,  if  you  please, 
do  with  the  text  now  as  Augustine  did  in  his  sermon 
at  Carthage,  substitute  Ecdesia — "the  Church,"— -for 
Jesus,  and  write  "  the  body  of  Christ"  for  Christ ;  still  it 
would  be  true,  as  he  said,  "  The  faith  of  a  few  touches 
it, — the  crowd  of  many  {turba  multorum)  only  presses 
against  it."  The  Christian  ground  is  never  truly  taken 
till  Christ  is  confessed  ;  but  then  He  may  be  loudly 
claimed  in  the  cry,  "  The  temple  of  the  Lord,"  when 
no  fruits  prove  the  heart  to  be  thoroughly  surrendered. 
Now  that  many  of  you  are  turning  your  steps  more  fre- 
quently to  the  solemn  assemblies  and  public  ordinances  of 
the  Faith,  forget  not  your  Lord's  imperative  command, — 
let  it  follow  you  out  into  your  week-day  work :  "  Amend 
your  ways  and  your  doings."  "Who  is  the  true  Christian  ? 
You  may  suppose  the  case  of  a  person  who  from  a  state  of 
indifference  and  neglect  about  religion  has  been  converted 
to  a  sense  of  its  real  interest  and  power,  and  that  this  per- 
son is  so  placed  that  the  men  he  meets  in  his  business 
and  in  society  are  not  informed  of  his  change.  "Will 
they  find  it  out,  then,  by  any  manifest  change  passing 
over  the  spirit  and  manners  of  his  business  and  social 
life  ?  Will  they  find  him  purer,  gentler,  better,  nobler, 
holier?  Or  take  the  case  of  two  men,  one  with  and  the 
other  without  the  Christian  profession.  Hold  the  two 
aloof  awhile  from  any  place  or  occasion  where  the  profes- 
sion would  be  formally  shown, — at  a  churchless  trading- 


206  THE  THRONG   AND  THE   TOUCH. 

port,  or  in  the  week-day  life  of  a  gay  city.  Would  the 
world  be  able  to  tell  which  is  which?  These  are  the 
tests.  There  was  an  artist  in  the  old  times  who 
carved  a  metal  shield,  into  the  bosses  of  which  he  so 
ingeniously  and  inseparably  wrought  his  own  name  that 
it  could  not  be  obliterated  except  by  the  destruction  of 
the  shield  itself.  Good  Christians,  you  ought  to  bear  the 
armor  of  righteousness  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left, 
and  on  it  that  one  name,  seen  of  all  men,  one  image  never 
invisible  there,  till  you  take  the  armor  off  to  go  within 
the  veil.  That  manifestation  of  the  truth  in  a  practical 
holiness  commends  the  Christian,  commends  the  Church, 
commends  Christ,  to  every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight 
of  God.  With  that  inwrought  secret  of  life  and  im- 
mortality in  your  soul, — a  living  faith, — though  the 
outward  man  perish,  the  inward  man  is  renewed  day  by 
day.  "  Somebody  hath  touched  Me."  Are  you  then 
touching  the  temple  for  your  salvation,  or  Christ  for 
your  Saviour  ?  Are  you  touching  Him  by  your  personal 
faith,  or  only  pressing  upon  Him  with  the  multitude? 
Do  you  only  join  the  popular  procession  of  a  nominal 
Christianity  which  shouts  its  heartless  hosannas  along 
the  highway  to  Jerusalem,  or  will  you  march  all  the 
hard  road  of  a  holy  obedience,  with  your  crucified  Master, 
till  he  tells  you  to  lay  the  cross  down,  when  the  resur- 
rection morning  breaks  ? 


SUPPLICATION  THE  CHUECH'S  POWEK. 

Second  Sundm/  m  Lent, 

**  And  the  whole  multitude  of  the  people  were  praying  without  at 
the  time  of  incense." — St,  liuTce  i.  10. 

Both  the  parents  of  John,  Zacharias  and  Elizabeth, 
were  of  the  family  of  the  Hebrew  priesthood.  For  a 
long  time  the  ministrations  of  this  great  sacerdotal  order, 
in  the  temple  service  at  Jerusalem,  had  been  distributed 
among  twenty-four  courses  of  priests,  each  course  taking 
its  turn  for  a  week,  and  each  having  its  own  leader.  At 
the  time  when  the  evangelist's  narrative  opens,  Abia 
stood  at  the  head  of  the  eighth  of  these  twenty-four 
courses,  and  Zacharias,  the  father  of  the  Baptist,  was 
officiating  in  his  turn  in  that  course.  "  It  came  to  pass," 
says  St.  Luke,  "  that  while  he  executed  the  priest's  office 
in  the  order  of  his  course,  his  lot  was  to  burn  incense 
when  he  went  into  the  temple  of  the  Lord.  And  the 
whole  multitude  of  the  people  were  praying  without  at 
the  time  of  incense.  And  there  appeared  unto  him  an 
angel  of  the  Lord  standing  on  the  right  side  of  the  altar 
of  incense." 

It  moves  our  veneration, — the  majestic  continuity  of 
this  holy  office,  the  order  of  its  courses  reaching  from  the 
reign  of  King  David,  unbroken  save  by  the  short  inter- 
ruptions of  captivity,  and  scarcely  even  then,  for  four  of 
the  courses  returned  to  Jerusalem  to  take  their  places 


208  SUPPLICATION   THE 

when  the  exile  was  over ; — the  priesthood  itself,  dating 
back  to  the  wilderness,  reaching  over  a  tract  of  centuries 
that  saw  the  rising  and  falling  of  many  einpires, — its 
ranks  very  commonly  embracing  thousands  of  men.  Tlie 
sublimity  of  it  is  only  heightened  when  we  recall  the 
nature  of  that  ministry  committed  to  them  by  God 
himself.  Constant  as  the  morning  and  evening  that 
daily  open  and  shut  their  gates  on  the  eyes  of  men,  they 
waited  around  that  altar  which  steadfastly  prefigured 
and  prophesied  the  Redeemer ;  they  kept  a  sleepless 
watch  over  the  fire  on  the  altar  of  burnt-offerings,  which 
typified  Christ's  eternal  sacrifice,  never  letting  it  go  out, 
day  or  night ;  they  "  fed  the  golden  lamps  outside  the 
veil  with  sacred  oil";  they  offered  the  daily  sacrifices, 
morning  and  evening,  at  the  door  of  the  tabernacle; 
they  were  always  ready  at  hand  to  do  the  cleansing  and 
comforting  offices  commanded  in  the  law.  And  here,  in 
the  text,  we  have  a  glimpse  of  them  in  their  lofty  work, 
just  as  the  Gospel  fulfilments  and  spiritual  glories  broke 
in  on  their  typical  routine  in  the  person  of  the  Son  of 
Man. 

From  the  ministry  going  on  there  turn  to  the  place, 
with  its  arrangements.  Near  the  entrancJe  of  the  temple, 
— the  heart  of  the  nation's  life, — outside  what  was  prop- 
erly the  sanctuary,  advanced  as  if  in  token  of  a  freely 
offered  mercy  to  meet  the  approaching  worshipper, 
was  the  large  altar  of  the  daily  sacrifice.  Farther  in 
toward  the  most  holy  place,  very  near  to  the  veil  of  the 
covenant,  to  signify  that  closer  access  which  the  accepted 
believer  has  to  the  Intercessor  who  is  ascended  into 
the  true  Holy  of  holies,  stood  another  altar,  with  its 
crown  of  pure  gold  and  its  golden  rings,  on  which  one 
of  the  priests,  chosen  by  lot, — all  of  them  so  many  that 
it  was  a  Jewish  tradition  that  the  same  priest  never  did 


209 

it  more  than  once, — oifered  twice  every  day  the  sweet 
incense,  which  with  its  ascending  smoke,  in  the  beautiful 
language  of  St.  John,  is  as  "  the  prayers  of  saints." 
Notice  that  the  fire  which  lighted  this  altar  was  always 
to  be  taken  fresh  from  the  outer  altar,  of  the  sacrifice  for 
sin, — another  type  of  Christian  truth, — because  the 
acceptance  of  Christian  prayers  depends  on  their  being 
ofi'ered  only  through  a  Saviour  suftering  and  crucified. 

Another  remarkable  feature  remains.  At  the  moment 
when  the  effectual  work  of  propitiation  and  intercession 
goes  forward  within  the  temple, — what  is  seen  without  ? 
The  whole  multitude  of  the  people,  bending  in  silent 
awe,  seconding  the  priestly  office  and  making  it  in  some 
sense  their  own,  joining  their  faith  to  the  sacrifice,  and 
lifting  their  hearts  with  the  rising  incense-cloud,  are  in 
supplication  before  God.  This  can  represent  nothing 
else  than  the  power  of  the  united  prayers  of  the  Chris- 
tian congregation,  aiding  and  supporting  the  official 
work  of  the  threefold  ministry  and  the  holy  offices  of  the 
Church,  in  declaring  Christ  to  the  world. 

The  question  before  us,  then,  thrown  open  in  its 
broadest  form,  will  be  this  :  Are  we  using  the  devotional 
power  of  the  Church  in  due  proportion  to  its  other 
powers  ?  In  laying  our  plans,  whether  for  our  private 
religious  regulation  and  personal  growth  in  holiness,  or 
for  the  public  advancement  of  Christ's  kingdom,  are  we 
looking  directly  enough  and  constantly  enough  to  God  ? 
In  shaping  and  starting  new  measures,  even  for  the 
Church's  honor  and  for  the  saving  of  men,  do  we  go 
first,  and  go  most  confidently,  and  go  continually,  to  Him 
whose  presence  is  our  only  life,  and  whose  favoring  will, 
in  every  Christian  movement,  is  the  only  moving  force? 
In  our  individual  self-discipline,  when  we  are  depressed 
with  a  sense  that  it  is  not  going  well  with  us,  when 

14 


210 

some  flash  of  light  in  these  Lenten  self-examinations 
exposes  a  new  weak  spot,  or  when  a  providence  suddenly 
reveals  the  wrong  direction  in  which  our  habits  have 
been  gradually  and  almost  imperceptibly  deflecting,  when 
the  heart  seems  frozen,  the  senses  leprous,  faith  sleeping, 
and  we  wonder  what  is  the  matter,  do  we  take  that 
question  straight  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  readily  as  we  ask 
it  of  ourselves  ?  If  in  any  of  our  undertakings  we  fail, 
there  is  very  little  doubt  that  we  fail  because  we  did  not 
expect  enough  and  ask  enough  of  God ; — for  that  expecta- 
tion is  only  another  name  for  faith ;  and  that  asking  is 
prayer. 

Men  say,  "  Religion  is  a  thing  between  a  man  and  his 
Maker " ;  and  though  it  is  often  said  to  palliate  some 
inexcusable  neglect  of  an  open  religious  confession 
before  men,  yet  it  is  profoundly  true.  We  take  you,  O 
men  of  the  world,  at  your  word.  Religion  is  a  thing 
between  man  and  his  Maker ;  not  between  man  and 
himself,  not  between  man  and  society,  not  between  man 
and  the  State.  All  our  relations  and  duties  to  these,  and 
theirs  to  us,  come  under  the  law  of  morality ;  and  though 
morality,  with  its  practical  relations  and  duties  receives 
inspiration  and  guidance  from  the  doctrines  and  ordin- 
ances of  religion,  yet  when  we  rise  to  religion  itself, 
entering  her  invisible  and  heavenly  tabernacle,  we  pass 
out  of  all  merely  moral  connections,  and  are  in  the 
presence  of  God.  There  are  two  parties,  and  only  two. 
The  business  of  religion,  therefore,  is  to  bring  offerings 
to  Him,  and,  in  answer  to  our  prayers,  to  take  blessings 
from  Him.  This,  with  the  sacred  sentiments,  affections, 
and  actions  which  belong  to  that  holy  intercourse,  is  the 
first  business  of  the  Church.  It  sets  open  the  channel 
of  communion,  where  there  is  tliis  incessant  spiritual 
passing  and  repassing  between  the  Infinite  Heart  of  Love 


211 

which  is  open  there,  and  these  hearts  of  ours,  weak  and 
struggling,  uneasy  and  hungry  and  sinning,  here.  By 
this  spiritual  interchange,  our  whole  life  opens  a  path 
into  heaven,  and  the  blessed  life  of  heaven  opens  down 
upon  us.  So,  Christians,  we  stand,  in  this  sacred  and 
redeemed  creation,  always  at  a  temple-door.  No  doubt 
there  are  mysteries.  What  temple  was  ever  without  its 
suggestions  of  mystery  ?  Even  a  very  deep  and  strong 
human  love  has  its  mysteries.  But  nevertheless,  the  Light 
falls  down  from  the  Throne.  God  is  there.  The  door 
is  swung  open.  We  are  near  to  Him  ;  He  is  near  to  us. 
The  Mediator  and  Intercessor  is  praying  there  for  us. 
Our  prayers  are  joined  with  His.  The  reconciliation  is 
accomplished.  It  is  as  if  the  scene  at  Jerusalem  were 
reproduced  in  its  Christian  and  everlasting  reality.  It 
is  the  time  of  incense.  The  chief-priest  is  at  the  golden 
altar,  with  the  fire  kindled.  The  whole  multitude  of 
the  Church  below  is  on  its  knees,  the  faithful  people 
supplicating  for  pardon  and  peace,  entreating  that  they 
may  perceive  and  know  what  things  they  ought  to 
do,  and  may  have  power  and  grace  to  fulfil  the  same, — 
asking  and  receiving  that  their  joy  may  be  full. 

The  next  step  follows  irresistibly.  Every  movement 
of  religious  life  among  us  must  get  its  power  and  direc- 
tion from  the  Spirit  of  God.  Every  contrivance  of 
ecclesiastical  or  parochial  wisdom,  of  energy,  even  of 
piety,  is  nothing  but  a  making  ready  for  this  Spirit. 
We  may  try  other  things,  as  we  certainly  do,  and  may  try 
them  with  the  best  intentions.  We  call  people  together, 
form  societies,  write  constitutions  for  them  with  rules 
and  by-laws,  devise  and  discuss  measures,  publish  statis- 
tics, secure  an  incorporation  perhaps,  send  for  the  ablest 
speakers,  collect  money,  and  when  the  institution  is 
thoroughly  organized  and  built,  we  look  at.it  and  watch 


fi 


.^^ot  ruT 


mriVBRSii  ill 


212 

its  working.  It  is  all  done  in  the  interest  and  for 
the  sake  of  some  Christian  truth  or  charity.  But  the 
amount  of  spiritual  product  is  exactly  in  proportion  to  the 
coming  into  all  this  apparatus  of  that  living  Spirit  of 
God, — the  love  of  the  Father,  the  grace  of  Christ,  the 
fellowship  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  the  degree  of  that 
coming  and  power,  again,  will  be  exactly  in  proportion 
to  the  fervency  and  the  frequency  of  prayers  that  are 
offered  by  believers  around  it.  If  you  would  find  the 
true  secret  of  spiritual  success,  you  need  not  seek  for  it 
in  the  admirableness  of  the  plan,  the  shrewdness  of  the 
management,  the  numbers  that  subscribe,  or  the  elo- 
quence of  the  advocates.  You  might  better  seek  it  in 
some  very  obscure  chambers,  some  out-of-the-way  corners, 
some  closets  with  the  doors  shut,  where  men  or  women 
or  children  in  whose  breasts  God  has  a  Temple  of  His 
own, — never  heard  of  at  the  public  meetings,  poor  and 
simple-hearted  and  of  stammering  lips, — ^kneel  with 
their  great-hearted  and  prevailing  petitions,  not  dis- 
couraged by  the  slowness  of  the  answer,  trusting  not 
in  themselves  but  only  in  the  Lord  Almighty.  These 
are  the  "  multitude  praying  without."  It  is  they, — be 
they  few  or  many,  known  or  unknown, — who  are  the  secu- 
rity of  your  constitutions,  the  builders  of  your  churches, 
the  senders  of  your  missionaries,  the  really  efficient 
patrons  of  your  orphan-houses,  hospitals,  and  Christian 
education  societies.  The  finest  and  firmest  machinery 
in  the  world  is  so  much  dead  material  without  these 
prayers.  I  suppose  most  of  you  have  seen  some  elabo- 
rate and  costly  specimen  of  mechanism,  standing  still : 
every  little  screw  and  bolt  of  the  complicated  system  in 
its  place ;  every  post  and  bar,  flange  and  transom  secure ; 
every  bright  lever  and  arm,  wheel  and  tooth,  tempered  and 
tested ; — the  whole  a  splendid  embodiment  and  trophy 


213 

of  intellectual  ingenuity  and  determination, — yet  silent 
and  inert  as  icicles,  till  some  lifted  gate  or  opened  valve  lets 
in  the  mysterious  motive-power  which  makes  it  a  sure  and 
mighty  servant  of  a  purpose  beyond  it.  So  are  all  our 
best  religious  measures,  till  the  breath  of  the  Church's 
prayers  joins  them  to  the  Spirit  from  on  High.  Through- 
out all  its  portions,  the  Scripture  has  no  other  doctrine. 
"  Be  strong,  all  ye  people  of  the  Lord,  for  I  am  with 
you,  saith  the  Lord."  "  ]^ot  by  might,  not  by  power, 
but  by  My  Spirit."  "  Pray  ye  the  Lord  of  the  harvest 
that  He  will  send  forth  laborers."  "  Prove  Me  if  I  will 
not  open  the  windows  of  heaven,  and  pour  you  out  a 
blessing."  "  O  God,  we  know  not  what  to  do,  but  our 
eyes  are  upon  Thee."  How  was  it  with  our  blessed 
Lord  himself?  It  was  when  He  was  prajdng,  by  the 
river  Jordan,  after  His  baptism,  that  the  heaven  was 
opened  and  a  dove  descended ;  it  was  when  He  was 
praying  again,  "  Father,  glorify  Thy  name,"  that  heaven 
was  opened  a  second  time,  and  an  audible  voice  spoke. 
It  was  when  He  was  praying  in  the  garden  of  Gethse- 
mane,  that  it  was  opened  a  third  time,  and  an  angel 
was  seen  strengthening  Him.  "And  ye,  beloved,  pray- 
ing in  the  Holy  Ghost,  keep  yourselves  in  the  love  of 
God."  "  The  prayer  of  a  righteous  man  availeth " 
for  his  character,  more  than  his  labor ;  and  to  those 
that  do  not  pray  there  are  no  promises. 

We  look  into  the  Bible  records  of  the  beginnings  and 
growth  of  God's  kingdom  on  the  earth.  On  every  spot 
where  that  kingdom  struck  root  we  see  a  group  of  men 
bending  in  prayer.  When  the  Eastern  magi  were 
brought  by  the  star  to  Bethlehem,  all  their  intellectual 
strength  bowed  itself  down  to  a  little  child ;  they  taught 
nothing,  proposed  nothing ; — they  did  not  even  speak  ; 
it  was  simply  an  offering;  the  signification  of  it  was 


214 

the  submission  of  knowledge  to  faith.  It  was  worship. 
From  page  to  page,  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  they 
are  shown  to  us  together  looking  upward.  When 
an  order  in  the  ministry,  an  apostle,  or  a  missionary, 
was  to  be  set  apart,  or  sent  out,  special  prayer  sig-" 
nalized  the  ceremony.  At  the  meeting  and  parting 
of  Christian  friends,  on  their  sacred  errands,  they 
knelt  and  prayed.  If  one  of  their  number  was 
imprisoned,  prayer  was  made  for  him  day  and  night. 
When  an  epistle  was  written,  whatever  other  words  of 
affectionate  salutation  there  might  be,  the  chief  and 
ever-recurring  message  ran  like  this, — "  Always,  in  every 
prayer  of  mine,  making  mention  of  you  all."  If  an- 
other of  them  touches,  in  his  writing,  on  such  a  familiar 
duty  as  the  harmony  of  husband  and  wife,  the  lofty 
reason  of  it  he  gives  is, — "that  your  prayers  be  not 
hindered."  If  a  special  ministry  of  deacons  is  appointed 
for  the  outer  cares  of  charity,  it  is  that  the  higher  office 
may  be  more  especially  reserved  for  prayer.  When  the 
Holy  sacrament  of  the  Communion  is  celebrated,  or 
alms  are  given,  eucharistic  prayer  accompanies  the  break- 
ing of  bread,  and  oblation-prayer  comes  up  as  a  me- 
morial of  faith,  with  the  alms,  before  Christ.  What  an 
epoch  of  prayer  was  that !  So  elevated  are  these  ardent 
and  consecrated  souls  towards  heaven,  so  open  towards 
God's  spirit,  so  conscious  that  they  have  only  to  ask  to 
receive,  that  devotion  seems  to  have  become  an  instinct, 
and  they  pray  as  they  breathe.  The  whole  fiery  heart 
of  the  Church  of  Christ  was  in  instant  communication 
with  its  ascended  Head.  And  what  followed  ?  Why, 
this  was  the  period  when  the  Church  grew  before  men's 
eyes  with  such  swiftness  that  a  thousand  converts  were 
gathered  in  the  time  that  it  takes  us  to  gather  ten :  in 
the  short  lifetime  of  a  single  generation  the  worship 


215 

of  Christ  raised  itself  to  power  in  the  chief  cities  of 
three  continents ;  the  swords  of  all  the  Herods  and 
Caesars  and  their  legions  could  not  strike  fast  enough  to 
cut  down  one  Christian  where  twenty  sprang  up ;  hun- 
dreds were  baptized  in  a  day ;  the  times  of  refreshing 
had  come ; — the  prediction  was  literally  accomplished ; — 
the  windows  of  heaven  were  opened,  and  the  blessing 
was  so  poured  out  that  there  was  not  room  enough  to 
receive  it.  If  hard  questions  were  encountered,  as  to 
discipline,  or  ritual,  or  personal  preference  in  the  apos- 
tleship,  they  were  melted  down  in  these  holy  fires 
of  common  prayer ;  men  could  not  long  strive  bitterly 
with  each  other  who  entreated  the  Lord  of  unity  to  pity 
and  bless  them  together  and  make  them  like  Himself, 
every  time  they  looked  into  each  other's  faces.  These 
were  the  fruits.  How  can  we  fail  to  connect  together 
the  fruit  with  the  seed, — the  glorious  movement  and  the 
motive-power, — the  Church  pure  in  doctrine  and  victori- 
ous in  converting  the  world  with  the  multitude  of  her 
members  not  only  standing  full-clad  in  all  the  panoply 
of  the  Christian  warfare,  but  praying  always,  with  all 
prayer  and  supplication  in  the  Spirit  ? 

All  along  since  the  last  of  the  twelve  laid  down  his 
life,  this  rule  has  never  had  an  exception ; — the  Church 
has  been  both  strong  and  pure,  victorious  abroad  and 
peaceful  with  itself,  just  according  to  its  spirit  of  sup- 
plication ;  according  to  its  devotional  nearness  to  Christ 
its  Head,  because  that  means  and  carries  with  it  its 
separation  from  worldly-mindedness  and  its  indiflfer- 
ence  to  the  worldly  standards  of  success.  Whenever 
there  has  been  a  great  uprising  of  new  missionary 
power,  or  a  reformation,  or  a  rousing  from  sleep,  as  if 
some  immense  light  had  broken  on  the  eyes  of  the 
watchers  east  and  west,  the  one  invariable  mark  of  such 


216 

an  age  has  been  a  general  earnestness  and  faithfulness  in 
supplication.  Men  have  not  been  seen  running  about, 
till  they  first  went  into  their  sanctuaries  and  their 
closets  with  stronger  and  heartier  cries  for  the  Spirit. 
They  were  not  looking  to  each  other  for  help,  but  to 
God.  They  did  not  undertake  first  to  construct  new 
systems,  but  they  betook  themselves  first  to  the  mercy- 
seat  by  the  Church's  old  and  well-worn  road.  They 
prayed  as  they  worked,  in  God's  order  and  appointment. 
The  multitude  at  Jerusalem  had  not  broken  away  to 
worship  in  their  own  unbidden  and  promiscuous  fash- 
ions, according  to  their  individual  fancies,  as  if  new  ways 
would  bring  new  hearts  or  new  blessings.  'No,  they 
were  at  the  one,  right  place ;  at  the  courts  of  the  Lord's 
house  :  bending  towards  the  covenant  sign ;  and  it  was 
"  at  the  time  of  incense."  And  so  the  periods  of  prayer 
have  always  been  the  periods  of  life.  As  soon  as  men 
imagined  they  could  put  schemes,  societies,  treasuries 
and  buildings  in  the  place  of  prayer,  weakness  crept  back 
upon  them.  The  period  of  power  went  out  as  the 
period  of  self-reliance  or  worldly  compromise  came  in. 
Only  by  My  Spirit  can  ye  be  strong,  saith  the  Lord  of 
hosts. 

A  lingering  doubt  casts  up  its  faithless  suggestion  at 
these  words :  "  Is  not  the  Church  constantly  praying  ? 
Yet  where  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise?"  The 
answer  is  found  under  another  word,  "  the  prayers  of 
faithP  We  may  be  sure  that  the  measure  of  the  faith 
is  the  measure  of  the  power  of  the  prayer,  and  that  the 
measure  of  such  prayer  is,  sooner  or  later,  the  measure 
of  the  blessing  we  receive.  We  very  often  mistake  the 
strength  of  our  desire  for  the  strength  of  our  faith. 
Besides,  faith  is  a  general  quality  of  the  whole  soul  in 
all  its  acts  and  aspects  towards  the  Saviour,  and  pertains 


217 

to  its  habitual  attitude ;  it  is  not  a  mere  sudden,  special 
expectation  of  having  some  greatly- wanted  boon  granted. 
It  is,  for  the  most  part,  a  grace  of  slow,  patient,  and  silent 
growth.  Most  of  us,  in  our  common  moods,  scarcely 
touch  the  rim  of  its  great  depth  of  meaning,  or  taste  of 
its  incalculable  peace.  It  is  true  just  as  it  stands, — 
"  According  to  your  faith,  in  asking,  be  it  unto  you." 
It  is  true  of  our  private  conflicts  with  the  tempter,  our 
struggles  with  ourselves,  our  resistance  of  the  sins  that 
most  easily  beset  us,  our  fight  with  temper  and  pride  and 
indolence  and  luxury,  with  Satan  in  his  most  angelic 
garment.  Spiritual  victory  and  progress  will  be  gained 
on  our  knees,  by  looking  up  and  saying,  "  Lord,  if 
Thou  wilt,  Thou  canst  make  me  clean.  Save  me,  or  I 
perish."  Zacharias  saw  the  vision  of  the  angel,  beside 
the  altar  of  incense,  before  the  veil.  To  us  Christians 
the  veil  is  rent  assunder.  The  Holy  of  holies  is  thrown 
open.  The  Saviour  whom  the  types  foretold  is  come. 
And  now,  if  any  man  sin,  we  have  an  advocate  with 
the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  Righteous,  who  ever  liveth 
to  make  intercession  for  us,  the  High-priest  tempted 
here  as  we  are,  yet  sinless,  needing  not  to  make  sacrifice 
for  His  own  sins,  yet  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our 
every  infirmity,  and  Himself  our  sacrifice. 

Can  we  look  on  any  side  of  us  this  day  and  not  con- 
fess that  the  great  need  of  Christ's  body  is  this  need  of 
Him,  of  the  power  which  we  have  seen  can  come  only 
from  Him,  and  which  comes  only  as  we  pray  for  it? 
The  dear  Church  seems  to  me  to  stand,  with  her  holy 
mysteries,  very  much  as  the  temple  stood  that  day, — the 
ark  of  promise  and  the  altar  of  incense  and  of  the  one 
eternal  sacrifice  all  safe  and  sure  within.  But  is  the 
multitude  praying  as  that  multitude  prayed  ?  Is  it  that 
prayer  of  yearning  and  earnest  and  living  faith,  for  new 


218 

spiritual  gifts,  wliich  will  not  be  denied  ?  Look  every 
way, — into  markets,  streets,  newspapers,  courts,  down 
into  the  sins  of  tlie  low  places,  out  into  the  sins  of  the 
high  places, — the  insubordination  of  the  poor  and  the 
extravagance  of  the  rich,  the  impatience  of  the  weak 
and  the  arrogance  of  the  strong,  the  wrongs  of  com- 
merce and  the  impurities  of  legislation,  the  selfishness 
and  sensuality  tainting  the  whole  structure  of  the  State, 
and  the  divisions  in  the  house  of  the  Lord.  Seeing 
that  we  have  no  power  of  ourselves  to  help  ourselves,  is 
it  not  time  to  go  to  Him  who  alone  can  show  us  what 
things  we  ought  to  do,  and  give  us  power  and  grace  to 
fulfil  the  same  ?  This  is  not  such  a  world  that  we  can 
afford  to  live  in  it  without  great  nearness  to  Him  who, 
having  died  once,  liveth  evermore.  This  is  not  such  a 
life  as  we  should  dare  to  try  to  live  any  further  without 
offering  the  whole  of  it, — its  gold,  its  incense,  and  its 
myrrh, — possessions,  prayers,  and  praises,  at  the  feet  of 
its  spiritual  King.  Light  the  lamps  of  faith,  then,  and 
watch.  Kindle  the  fire  of  incense  and  wait : — not  sleep- 
ing, but  watching  unto  prayer. 


PUKITY  AND  ITS  SAFEGUARDS. 

Third  Sunday  in  Lent, 

"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart:  for  they  shall  see  Q-od." — 
St.  Matthew  v.  8. 

The  warnings  of  this  Sunday  are  against  sins  of 
sensual  passion.  They  are  represented  as  coming  by 
"  evil  thoughts  which  assault  and  hurt  the  soul."  Good 
men  will  not  be  satisfied  with  escaping  the  disgrace  of 
public  crime.  If  our  minds  are  set  with  any  reverence 
towards  the  right,  we  shall  be  asking  nothing  less  than 
positive  purity,  or  an  inward  life  growing  up  from  a 
Divine  principle,  clean  from  all  moral  disease,  strong 
with  Christian  health.  Any  kind  of  disease  has  two 
effects ;  it  defiles  the  body  it  belongs  to,  and  delilitates 
it.  It  pollutes  the  substance  and  weakens  the  energies. 
Sin  is  the  soul's  disease.  If  the  disease  is  there,  then, 
"  from  within,"  out  of  the  foul  heart  will  proceed  all  the 
foul  things  which  the  Saviour  named  as  defiling  the 
whole  man.  The  question,  therefore,  is  the  practical  one, 
how  to  keep  the  heart  healthy,  or  clean. 

The  pure  in  heart  are  blessed : — not  the  pure  by 
profession;  not  those  who  are  pure  according  to  that 
standard  of  purity  demanded  by  the  prevalent  social 
morality.  Christ  says  of  these,  knowing  just  liow  much 
and  how  little  they  have, — Doubtless  they  have  their 
reward.    But  it  is  not  the  glorious  privilege  of  the  pure 


220  PURITY  AND    ITS   SAFEGUARDS. 

in  heart  They  and  they  alone  have  what  the  saints  of 
old  used  to  call  the  "  beatific  vision."  They  alone  will 
see  that  sight  which  makes  any  soul  completely  blessed, 
— God's  full  glory  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Throughout  the  appointed  Scriptures  for  Lent,  it  is 
very  noticeable  how  prominent  and  plain-spoken  are  the 
Divine  rebukes  of  this  one  particular  kind  of  transgression, 
— the  sins  of  the  bodily  senses.  And  this  is  not  surprising, 
for  when  we  look  underneath  the  mere  ceremonial  sur- 
face we  see  that  there  must  be  some  deep  connection 
between  such  a  set  time  of  physical  self-denial  and  those 
special  temptations  which  have  their  origin  in  the  animal 
appetites.  These  appetites,  however,  remember,  are  not 
a  separate  section  of  us,  lying  by  itself,  cut  oif  from  the 
rest  of  our  nature.  They  are  mysteriously  and  perilously 
intertangled  with  some  higher  and  nobler  passions, — 
like  artistic  enthusiasm,  generous  affections,  intellectual 
ambition,  and  even  religious  excitement.  Apart  from 
the  principles  of  Christian  morality,  neither  what  is 
beautiful  in  any  of  the  fine  arts,  nor  what  is  true  in 
science  or  eloquent  in  letters,  has  any  effectual  restrain- 
ing power  over  the  sensual  propensities, — as  is  seen  by 
awful  demonstration  in  the  ages  of  Pericles,  of  the  Greek 
Olympics,  of  Leo  X.,  and  of  Louis  XIY.  This  alliance 
with  mental  curiosity  and  aesthetic  delight  is  really  the 
most  insidious  feature  of  that  species  of  vice.  To  the 
better-born  and  better-bred  classes,  such  vice,  in  its 
coarser  shapes,  is  not  tempting,  because  it  is  disgusting. 
Many  a  young  man  of  natural  or  cultured  refinement  is 
protected  from  some  of  the  worst  forms  of  immorality 
simply  by  their  vulgarity.  But  the  fearful  flimsiness  of 
that  shield  is  shown  the  moment  the  tempter  exchanges 
rags  and  filth  for  elegance,  accomplishments,  and  literary 
luxury.     In  fact,  it  is  the  belief  of  many  thoughtful 


PURITY   AND    ITS   SAFEGIJAED8.  221 

minds  in  Christendom  that  the  final  manifestation  of 
the  power  of  evil  on  the  earth, — the  "  man  of  sin  "  fore- 
told in  the  ITew  Testament  as  to  come  in  "the  last 
time," — surpassing  in  his  powers  of  mischief  every  other 
embodiment  of  depravity,  terrible  in  fascination,  will 
be  an  actual  historic  character,  combining  together  in 
this  all-surpassing  badness  the  most  splendid  intellectual 
abilities  with  unregenerated,  ferocious,  fleshly  passions, — 
Milton's  ideal  Satan,  realized  in  a  man. 

However  this  may  be,  for  all  of  us  practically  the 
problem  of  moral  purity  is  very  intimately  and  subtly 
connected  with  this  curiosity  and  eagerness  of  the  mind. 
An  unhallowed  knowledge,  or  the  thirst  for  it,  betrays 
the  conscience  and  seduces  the  heart.  And  this  is  what 
made  St.  Paul  write  to  his  friend,  "  I  would  have  you 
wise  unto  that  which  is  good  and  simjple  concerning 
evilP  An  innocent  knowledge  and  a  glorious  igno- 
rance ! 

The  idea  has  crept  in  among  our  popular  theories  of 
social  morals,  that  a  knowledge  of  vice  is  a  safeguard  to 
virtue.  We  are  told  that  hardy  plants  are  not  grown  in 
a  conservatory ;  that  our  sons  and  daughters  may  as  well 
be  acquainted  with  the  wickedness  of  the  world's  ways 
first  as  last ;  that  dissolute  fictions  and  a  French  stage 
are  a  capital  discipline  for  robust  principles;  in  short, 
that  morality  is  altogether  too  fragile  and  insecure  a 
creature  to  run  out-of-doors  alone,  without  a  little 
previous  initiation  into  depravity.  Worldly  fathers  and 
despairing  mothers  take  what  comfort  they  can  from  the 
easy  maxim  that  young  people  had  better  have  a  free 
range  through  scenes  of  temptation,  in  order  that  its 
attractions  may  not  take  them  by  surprise  further  on, 
and  that  they  must  "  see  life,"  to  know  how  to  live.  If 
we  could  lead  out  in  our  time  the  hopeless  profligates  of 


222  PURITY   AND    ITS   SAFEGUARDS. 

a  single  generation  which  that  plausible  philosophy  has 
betrayed,  the  joyous  households,  once  pure,  that  it  has 
wrecked  and  distracted,  the  sweet,  clean  hearts  it  has 
defiled,  the  noble  natures  it  has  degraded,  the  men 
whose  honor  it  has  ruined,  and  the  women  whose  peace 
it  has  crushed, — a  very  long,  a  very  mournful,  and  a  very 
admonitory  procession  it  would  be.  At  the  head  of  it 
move  the  first  human  pair,  marching  in  miserable 
humiliation  out  of  Eden.  The  tree  of  the  knowledge 
of  "good"  was  not  enough.  There  hung,  in  ruddy 
beauty,  the  more  luscious  fruit  of  the  knowledge  of 
"  evil "  as  well.  "Why  not  eat  of  that  ?  Knowledge 
can  do  no  harm.  Seeing  things  as  they  are!  Nature 
is  a  safe  study.  "  Thou  shalt  not  surely  die."  Six 
thousand  years  the  story  has  been  told  over  and  over. 
You  need  not  go  for  it  to  the  beginning  of  Genesis. 
It  was  acted  last  night  close  to  where  you  live, — 
happy  for  you  if  not  by  some  soul  that  you  love. 
Indiscriminate  knowledge,  unhallowed  curiosity,  the  lust 
of  the  mind  looking  through  eager  eyes,  is  the  unceasing 
temptation  of  man.  So  he  falls  first  into  sin,  then  into 
shame.     "  Seeing  life  "  turns'  out  to  be  tasting  of  death. 

Make  one  or  two  all-important  discriminations. 

There  is  a  difi'erence  between  kinds  of  sin.  Some 
sins,  far  more  than  others,  are  sins  first  of  the  imagina- 
tion. They  are  such  that  to  think  of  them  is  to  be 
tempted  by  them.  To  harbor  their  images,  to  gaze  on 
their  portraits,  is  to  open  wide  the  way  for  the  guilty 
realities  themselves.  With  other  offences  it  is  not  so, 
or  is  so  only  in  slighter  degrees.  The  most  vivid  and 
picturesque  stories  of  theft,  for  instance,  most  of  us  here 
could  probably  read,  to  any  extent,  without  much  danger 
of  becoming  kleptomaniacs  or  robbers.  Such  crimes  as 
come  of  cool    calculation,   not  stimulated  by   feeling, 


PIJKITY    AND    ITS    SAFEGUARDS.  223 

invested  by  no  halo  of  voluptuous  fancy,  we  are  not  much 
more  drawn  to  by  becoming  familiar  with  their  history. 
Yet  it  is  observed  even  of  these,  like  suicide  and  mur- 
der, that  they  have  their  run  at  periods,  like  diseases, 
showing  that  the  constant  contemplation  of  any  evil  thing, 
by  some  secret  fascination  or  sympathy,  weakens  the 
securities  that  save  us  from  its  power.  Especially  true  is 
this  of  those  which  are  secret  in  their  very  nature,  loving 
darkness  rather  than  light,  born  and  nursed  in  hidden 
chambers  where  no  eye  of  man  can  reach,  till  they  gain 
the  Satanic  strength,  finally,  to  break  openly  over  the 
bounds  of  law ;  but  at  any  rate  corroding,  corrupting,  and 
spoiling  the  chaste  heart,  till  it  is  pure  no  longer.  So 
certainly  teaches  Christ,  lie  who  knows  this  human  heart 
so  well  in  all  its  weakness, — when  He  insists  that  sin  is 
in  the  glance  of  the  eye  and  the  desire  of  the  mind. 
Hence  the  supreme  importance  He  assigns  in  His  teach- 
ing to  the  government  of  the  thoughts,  the  imagination, 
the  "  hidden  man."  Hence  His  terrific  calling  of  the 
unuUered  and  unacted  desire  by  the  name  of  the  most 
unfaithful  of  all  committed  crimes.  There  are  sins 
that  you  can  no  more  paint  on  the  airy  walls  of 
your  contemplation,  and  keep  there,  without  being 
made  sinful  by  them,  than  you  can  stamp  inky  types 
on  paper  and  leave  no  mark,  or  handle  pitch  without 
its  cleaving  to  your  fingers.  You  may  say,  "  Unto  the 
pure  all  things  are  pure,"  and  so  you  will  go  and  look,  and 
listen,  as  you  please ;  you  will  let  meretricious  art  and 
ambiguous  literature  and  bold  company  tempt  you  to 
the  full  bent  of  their  unbridled  will.  Yes — "  Unto  the 
pure  all  things  are  pure";  that  declares  a  principle. 
But  who  are  the  "  pure  "  ?  Will  any  one  of  us  here  in 
God's  house,  right-minded  as  he  may  be,  looking  up 
honestly  toward  the  great  white  Throne,  dare  say,  "  I  am 


224  PURITY   AND    ITS   SAFEGUARDS. 

pure "  ?  and  if  you  are,  how  does  it  happen  that  you 
willingly  suffer  impurity  to  be  the  tolerated  guest  of 
your  hearths  hospitality  ? 

Granted  that  some  insight  into  evil  is  necessary,  how 
is  that  knowledge  to  be  gained  ? 

A  good  deal  of  it  is  given  to  every  mind  by  divinely 
planted  instincts, — about  as  much,  if  they  are  kept  alive, 
as  is  needful  for  the  practical  management  of  life.  In 
some  sense  we  know  evil  by  knowing  good.  If  a  soul 
loves  God,  then  it  finds  intuitively  that  there  is  a  some- 
thing opposite  and  hateful  to  God,  which  it  must  hate. 
Right  suggests  its  eternal  enemy,  wrong.  Charity  con- 
veys some  quick  intimation  of  its  dark  shadow,  malice. 
The  dove  trembles  at  the  sound  of  the  wings  of  the 
hawk  it  never  saw  before.  Cynics  sneer  at  the  weak- 
ness of  innocence.  But  there  are  saints  who  are  also 
heroes,  known  and  read  of  all  men,  who  never  went  to 
school  to  license,  but  have  grown  up  clean-hearted  and 
clean-handed  from  their  cradles,  "  unspotted  from  the 
world  "  ;  and  yet  they  are  shrewd,  strong,  keen-sighted 
men,  and  masters  of  men, — hard  to  beguile,  and  hard  to 
circumvent.  St.  Anthony  in  the  picture  shuts  his  eyes; 
but  the  rock  in  his  desert  is  not  more  unyielding,  or 
the  moonlight  on  his  forehead  while  he  prays  more  chaste. 
You  have  read  the  melodious  sermon  on  purity  in  Mil" 
ton's  "  Comus," — and  what  stronger  woman  do  you 
expect  to  meet  anywhere  than  the  guileless  heroine 
there  ?  Sin  is  pollution  :  the  very  name  is  like  the  wild 
and  warning  cry  heard  by  travellers  in  the  East  at  night 
from  the  camp  of  the  lepers — "Unclean,  unclean ! "  Solo- 
mon understood  it.  "  Go  not  near  it,  pass  not  by  it, 
turn  from  it " : — touch  it  not,  taste  it  not,  handle  it  not. 
These  are  the  counsels  of  Almighty  Virtue,  tempted 
as  men  are  tempted,  yet  without  sin.     You  may  be 


PURITY   AND    ITS    SAFEGUARDS.  225 

"  simple  concerning  evil,"  and  yet,  by  being  "  wise  nnto 
that  which  is  good,"  armed  against  evil,  and  triumphing 
over  it. 

A  brilliant  biography  was  published  not  long  ago, 
presenting  the  career  of  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
men  of  letters  of  the  generation  just  past,  in  which  the 
theory  is  advocated  that  genius  is  an  apology  for  vice, 
and  that  he  who  would  portray  society  and  life  skilfully 
must  mix  in  their  muddiest  currents  and  try  the  whole 
circle  of  indulgence :  as  if  those  who  are  to  enlighten  or 
entertain  mankind  must  first  taste  of  filthy  cups,  and 
descend  to  vulgarity  on  their  way  to  refinement :  as  if 
any  lawless  nature  had  only  to  set  up  a  claim  to  origi- 
nality, in  order  to  take  a  license  for  sensuality  :  as  if  the 
Almighty  now  and  then  suspended  the  everlasting  laws 
of  righteousness  in  favor  of  anybody's  mental  gifts !  It 
is  a  denial  of  fact,  and  an  impiety  to  God.  Put  the 
case  respecting  any  heart  near  your  own.  Would  you 
not  recoil  from  the  practical  application  of  any  such 
romantic  paganism  there  ?  Of  any  friend  we  have, 
would  we  not  rather  be  assured  he  has  borne  always  an 
untainted  breast,  than  that  he  has  dragged  it  through  a 
slough  ?  Or  do  we  ever  imagine  him  less  "  wise  unto 
that  which  is  good,"  for  his  being  "  simple  concerning 
evil"? 

So  thought  some  of  the  old  Germans,  in  their  whole- 
some forest  life,  who,  according  to  their  Roman  his- 
torian, buried  the  details  of  private  vices  in  oblivion, 
^  farbade  their  publication,  and  were  blest  with  the 
chaster  manners. 

A  pure  character  is  a  growth,  and  follows  the  analogy 
of  growing  things.  Make  the  tree  good,  and  the  fruit 
will  be  good — the  Saviour  says.  Out  of  the  pure  heart 
the  pure  life  will  come.     But  how  do  you  make  the  tree 

16 


226  PURITY   AND    ITS   SAFEGUARDS. 

good  ?  Yon  provide  the  natural  conditions  of  a  strong, 
healtliy  vegetation.  You  take  care  for  a  good  soil,  a 
genial  climate,  a  free  play  of  the  sunshine,  moisture  in 
its  season,  a  shelter  from  frost.  And  if  there  are  any 
influences  destructive  of  the  tree's  health,  or  unfavor- 
able to  its  fruitage,  you  keep  them  out  of  the  way. 
You  do  not  bring  the  noxious  things  into  your  orchard, 
or  your  nursery,  to  try  how  near  you  can  place  them  to 
the  tree  without  their  taking  effect  on  it,  or  how  much 
injury  it  will  bear,  and  live  through  after  all.  ]^one 
but  a  fool  does  that.  You  do  not  import  canker-worms 
and  caterpillars  and  scatter  them  in  the  next  field,  to  see 
whether  they  will  make  their  way  into  your  horticulture ; 
or  whether,  if  they  do,  the  trial  will  not  strengthen 
the  tree's  constitution;  or  whether  the  tree  may  pos- 
sibly have  robustness  enough  to  put  out  a  second  supply 
of  leaves,  after  the  first  have  been  riddled  and  blasted. 
You  know  that  if  you  plant  your  tree  where  the  gases 
and  smoke  of  a  smelting  establishment  pour  a  corroding 
breath  upon  it,  it  will  perish.  "  The  end  of  these 
things  is  death."  You  know  that  if  you  place  a  peach- 
tree  near  others  already  tainted  with  the  yellows,  the 
contagion  will  spread,  the  blossoms  will  curl  and  drop, 
and  no  fruit  will  grow  on  the  blighted  branches.  "  What 
fruit  had  you  then  in  those  things  whereof  now  you 
are  ashamed  ? "  God,  my  friends,  has  not  entrusted  these 
sensitive  souls  to  us  to  be  experimented  upon  by  a  vain 
curiosity  or  a  headstrong  self-confidence.  They  are  to  be 
guarded  at  every  point  from  all  that  blights,  and  all  that 
defiles.  They  are  to  be  surrounded  with  blameless 
associations, — with  companions  that  act  and  speak  no 
guile.  Every  hour  while  contamination  is  postponed, 
and  corruption  kept  away,  is  so  much  saved  for  virtue. 
The  powers  of  right  in  the  soul  are  strengthening.    Good 


PUEITY   AND    ITS   SAFEGUARDS.  227 

habits  are  getting  formed  and  confirmed.  The  currents 
of  desire,  of  thought,  and  of  emotion,  are  learning  to 
run  in  fixed  and  lawful  channels.  The  man  is  growing 
daily  wiser  and  wiser  into  that  which  is  good,  in  a 
blessed  ignorance  of  evil. 

It  is  said,  on  the  other  hand,  that  Providence,  in  the 
actual  operation  of  human  life,  exposes  us  to  a  great  deal 
of  evil,  and  therefore  that  we  are  at  liberty  to  expose 
ourselves  to  it.  So,  in  some  sense.  Providence  exposes 
us  to  physical  disease.  We  do  not,  therefore,  approxi- 
mate as  much  as  we  can  to  the  resorts  of  miasma  and 
fever.  We  do  not  seek  to  inhale  the  air  breathed 
through  consumptive  lungs.  We  never  cultivate  the 
acquaintance  of  tlie  plague.  The  maxim,  "  The  greater 
the  sinner  the  greater  the  saint,"  was  never  true,  except 
to  a  shallow  judgment  which  takes  intensity  of  zeal  for 
the  balanced  and  solid  power  of  Christian  character,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  small  chances  that  out  of  a  hundred 
"  great  sinners  "  you  will  get  a  single  "  saint." 

'No !  we  pray,  if  we  pray  at  all,  "  Lead  us  not  into 
temptation."  There  is  meaning  in  that  prayer.  Our 
Lord  knew  us  better  than  we  know  ourselves,  when  He 
included  it  in  the  seven  brief  petitions  of  that  universal 
liturgy  He  gave  to  mankind.  The  man  must  have 
learnt  little  of  the  infirmities  of  his  own  conscience  and 
will  who  fancies  himself  strong  enough  to  dispense  with 
it.  "  Lead  us  not  into  temptation."  Who  can  repeat  it, 
without  insult  and  hypocrisy,  if,  having  said  it  to  the 
Most  High,  he  goes  to  seek  temptation,  or  lets  his  chil- 
dren seek  it  in  unprincipled  books,  in  dissolute  com- 
panionships, or  among  any  of  the  residences  of  guilt  ? 

For  one,  I  can  never  hear  parents  speak  of  sending 
their  offspring  purposely  into  perilous  company,  in  order 
that  they  may  see  the  world's  worst  side  early,  without 


228  PURITY   AND    ITS    SAFEGUARDS. 

painful  memories  of  horrors  unutterable  which  that 
shallow  maxim  has  sown,  hopes  it  has  broken  to 
pieces,  spiritual  beauty  it  has  disfigured,  and  the  gray 
hairs  it  has  brought  down  with  sorrow  to  the  grave. 
Let  virtue  have  the  vantage-ground  of  youth ;  let  holy 
shapes  of  purity  and  love  and  truth  preoccupy  the  soul, 
before  the  rabble  of  hateful  tormentors  rush  in.  The 
longer  these  blameless  guests  pitch  their  white  tents 
on  the  unsullied  field  of  the  child's  heart,  the  more  will 
we  rejoice  and  thank  the  protecting  God.  Give  the  first 
delicate  years  to  goodness ;  let  right  principles  grow  by 
exercise ;  let  the  habits  of  life  learn  to  run  in  the  even 
channels  of  piety  and  obedience,  and  it  shall  be  harder 
by  and  by  to  break  the  blessed  barriers  down. 

But  we  want,  it  is  said,  a  robust,  an  exposed,  tried 
virtue,  not  a  virtue  feebly  grown  in  solitude,  and  too 
sickly  to  bear  the  sun.  Beyond  all  question  we  do. 
But  they  who  think  to  find  here  an  apology  for  com- 
merce with  sin,  forget  that  there  is  just  as  much  discipline 
and  a  far  greater  blessing  in  resisting  the  inclination  to 
look  at  sin,  as  in  resisting  the  increase  of  it  after 
looking  and  listening  have  rooted  it  in  the  soul.  The 
point  where  the  first  offenders  were  to  learn  how  to 
strengthen  their  principles  was  in  refusing  to  taste  the 
forbidden  fruit,  not  in  seeing  how  they  could  escape  it 
when  its  virus  was  once  in  their  blood  It  was  enough 
that  it  was  forbidden.  The  trial  of  obedience  and  of 
faith  was  there. 

There  is  another  light,  still,  under  which  we  may  look 
at  this  whole  matter.  We  throw  ourselves  forward  a  few 
years,  when,  by  the  silent  laws  of  God  working  out 
surely  and  silently  their  deep  and  awful  issues,  the  con- 
sequences of  our  indulgence  will  become  plain  to  our 
experience.    If  reason,  Scripture,  the  Spirit's  testimony, 


PURITY   AND    ITS   SAFEGUARDS.  229 

companions,  history,  the  holy  dead,  did  not  teach  us,  time 
shall.  For  then,  as  habit  grows  obstinate,  as  the  abused 
spirit  begins  to  turn  and  prey  upon  itself,  as  a  perverted 
imagination  wreaks  its  revengeful  retribution,  as  age  or 
an  opening  eternity  shall  displace  fleeting  fancies  with 
everlasting  realities, — then  will  not  all  these  illusions 
pass  away,  and  the  sternest  self-denial  appear  our 
happiest  wisdom  ?  Then  we  shall  look  back  on  every 
familiar  tampering  with  vice  with  infinite  disgust  and 
unavailing  remorse.  Then,  to  have  turned  away  our  eyes 
and  our  ears  from  every  dubious  or  tempting  thing  will 
be  an  unspeakable  joy,  and  to  have  been  "  simple  con- 
cerning evil,"  will  have  proved  the  noblest  way  of  being 
"  wise  unto  "  all  that  is  "  good." 

If  we  look  back  even  over  the  little  way  we  have  gone 
in  our  life,  our  memories  will  instruct  us.  Whether 
we  fancy  we  have  conquered  or  fallen,  there  are  few  of 
us,  I  suspect,  that  cannot  recall  some  foolish  toleration 
of  ourselves  in  an  unhallowed  curiosity  which  we  would 
now  gladly  blot  out  with  tears  or  drops  of  blood, — some 
evil  companionship  in  childhood  which  threw  a  shadow 
across  our  lives,  or  fixed  a  stain  on  our  hearts,  that  has 
hindered,  or  saddened,  or  somehow  cursed  us  ever  since. 
Let  us  be  frank  and  confess.  Whenever  we  have  lin- 
gered in  the  presence  of  low  conceits,  or  have  let  some 
lower  inclination  prevail,  has  not  a  secret  feeling  of 
having  been  degraded  come,  as  sure  and  self-evidenc- 
ing testimony  to  our  guilt  ?  "  What  fruit  had  ye  then 
of  those  things  ? " 

The  best  protection  against  inward  impurity  is  to  pre- 
occupy the  inward  world  with  better  guests,  and  hold  it 
for  them  with  ceaseless  vigilance.  As  with  the  body  so 
with  the  spirit ;  if  we  would  have  health  we  must 
honor  the  laws  of  health.     Fill  your  life  with  spiritual 


230  PUEITY   AND   ITS    SAFEGUARDS. 

service  and  there  will  be  no  room  for  the  thoughts, 
imaginations  or  desires  which  assault  and  hurt  the  soul. 
Instead  of  fighting  them  after  they  enter,  keep  them 
out;  tell  them  at  the  gate  yon  have  better  company. 
Tell  them  so  in  the  name  of  Him  who,  when  He  had 
peremptorily  put  the  seducing  spirit  behind  Him, 
because  He  had  His  Father's  will  to  do,  found  angels 
ministering  to  Him.  "  Overcome  evil  with  good." 
There  is  many  a  secret  sin  that  is  best  contended  against 
not  by  first  thinking  about  it  and  then  resisting  it, — for, 
while  you  think  about  it,  it  takes  the  form  of  a  tempta- 
tion,— but  by  crowding  our  days  so  full  of  'duty  that  the 
tempter  will  find  no  treacherous  door  open.  "Work  is 
chaste.  Work  hallowed  by  prayer  is  chaster  still.  Have 
no  fears  that  God  will  not  help.  "  Every  branch  that 
beareth  fruit.  He  purgeth  it."  From  this,  as  from  every 
other  danger,  Christ  formed  within  is  safety,  is  salvation. 
We  must  end,  as  we  began,  on  the  mount  of  the  Beati- 
tudes. "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see 
God."  It  is  only  another  announcement  of  that  won- 
derful and  glorious  principle  which  runs  all  through  the 
inspiring  Gospel.  The  motive  power  lies  far  beyond  all 
selfish  hopes  or  fears.  At  every  step  the  disciple  takes 
his  rewards  as  he  goes  on ;  and  they  are  rewards  in  the 
kind  of  his  toil.  For  the  charity  that  sufiereth  long  and 
thinketh  no  evil  there  will  be  given  a  mightier  power  of 
love,  till  tongues  shall  cease  and  that  which  is  perfect  is 
come.  For  the  struggles  of  uncomplaining  patience 
there  will  be  the  grand  endurance  which  smiles  on  pain. 
For  faith,  the  sunlit  country  where  no  doubt  ever  casts 
a  shadow.  And  for  that  Christlike  purity  of  heart 
which  is  the  transparent  air  in  which  all  spiritual  graces 
live  and  move,  the  vision  Beatific  and  Divine,  which 
eye  hath  not  yet  seen,  which  no  heart  hath  yet  con- 


PURITY   AND    ITS   SAFEGUARDS.  231 

ceived.  [Nfevertheless,  it  is  a  vision  not  to  be  wholly 
postponed  and  waited  for  till  death  changes  us.  Death 
to  sin  is  always  changing  lis ;  victory  over  evil  is  always 
transfiguring  us.  The  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God 
will  begin  where  the  purity  begins.  It  will  be  an  imme- 
diate and  ever-growing  "  blessedness  "  even  here.  The 
vision  will  be  ever-brightening,  till  we  see  not  in  the 
least  "  as  through  a  glass  darkly,"  but  "  face  to  face." 


STEENGTH  OUT  OF  WEAKNESS. 
Fourth  Swnday  in  Lent, 

"My  strength  is  made  perfect  in  weakness." — II.  Corinthians  xii.  9. 

Along  with  other  new  forces  brought  in  bj  the  Gospel, 
spiritualizing  society  and  regenerating  humanity,  there 
came  an  original  doctrine  of  what  makes  weakness  and 
strength.  Up  to  that  time,  man  was  accounted  strong 
in  proportion  as  he  was  able  to  overmaster  the  persons 
and  things  about  him.  Matching  his  own  resources 
against  the  elements,  or  against  the  capacities  of  other 
men,  his  power  was  measured  by  his  ability  to  maintain 
his  superiority  in  these  quarrels  or  rivalries.  Till  the 
death  of  Christ,  the  strong  man  was  the  man  strong 
with  his  sinews  and  his  hands,  or,  at  best,  with  the 
cunning  and  calculation  of  his  brain.  He  was  first  who 
could  strike  down  most  enemies,  gather  most  wealth, 
march  longest  at  the  head  of  his  army,  pile  the  most 
perfect  pyramid,  or  most  fascinate  an  Athenian  assembly 
by  the  subtle  charm  of  eloquent  speech. 

Corresponding  to  this  heathenish  estimate  of  what 
makes  up  "  strength "  was  the  view  taken  of  bodily 
"  weakness."  It  was  either  to  be  simply  deplored  as  a 
calamity,  or  despised  as  a  shame.  ITo  spiritual  illumin- 
ation, shining  through,  transfigured  the  sick  face ;  no 
submission  of  faith  dignified  the  poor  frame  prostrate 
with  pain.     The  men,  and  even  the  women,  looked  on 


STRENGTH   OUT   OF   WEAKNESS.  233 

disease  with  a  kind  of  dry  disgust.  Some  of  tlie  best  of 
them  proposed  to  kill  off  the  old  people  as  unserviceable 
to  the  State.  Yirtue  consisted  in  keeping  up  the  animal 
vigor  as  long  as  possible,  and  when  it  failed,  all  that  the 
most  faithful  friendship  could  do  was  to  draw  back  in  help- 
less embarrassment,  just  where  Christian  sympathy  is  most 
eager  to  press  forward  and  reach  out  its  merciful  hands. 
It  was  imbecility  gazing  at  infirmity  in  despair.  Instead 
of  hospitals  for  disorder  and  retreats  for  the  disabled, 
you  have  only  the  Greek  tragedies  chanting  in  superb 
poetry  their  melancholly  wail  at  human  suffering,  or 
Latin  comedies  laughing  at  it.  We  see  the  apostle  of 
Christ  standing  in  the  presence  of  such  a  proud  civiliza> 
tion  as  that,  and  quietly  saying  to  it,  "  When  I  am  weak, 
then  am  I  strong."  And  we  cannot  wonder  that  to  the 
mere  children  of  nature  then,  as  to  men  and  women 
of  the  mere  natural  reason  still,  such  a  saying  was  a 
riddle,  with  hardly  a  clue  to  its  meaning. 

The  meaning  is  that  in  order  to  get  very  near  to  God, 
or  to  let  the  glorious  attractions  of  almighty  love  and 
light  lay  hold  of  us,  and  lift  us  up, — we  must  be  somehow 
impoverished  first,  belittled,  disappointed,  baffled,  weak- 
ened. Whereas  we  had  imagined  we  were  strong  in 
proportion  as  we  could  make  our  own  way,  it  turns  out, 
quite  to  the  contrary,  that  we  are  really  strong  in  pro- 
portion as  we  are  conscious  of  needing  and  receiving 
help  from  above  us,  as  we  feel  dependent  on  the  Divine 
Man,  and  keep  our  hearts  open  to  His  inward-working 
power.  Whereas  we  thought,  with  those  old  pagans,  that 
we  should  be  strong  by  pride,  it  proves  that  pride  is  just 
the  feeblest  thing  in  us,  and  that  we  must  be  emptied 
clean  of  it  before  we  can  be  sure  of  any  real  lionor, — 
because  pride  separates  us  effectually  from  the  fountain 
of  inward  life.     Whereas  a  growing  fortune,  or  a  lucra- 


234  STRENGTH    OUT    OF   WEAKNESS. 

tive  business,  seemed  to  be  a  means  of  safety,  it  turns 
out  that  this  depends  altogether  on  tlie  man  who  holds 
it,  and  the  spirit  in  which  he  uses  it ;  and  that  unless  he 
can  do  without  it,  or  give  it  away,  when  God  calls  him, 
he  is  as  weak  as  that  very  promising  young  man, — 
promising,  but  only  promising, — who  came  to  Jesus 
complacent,  but  went  away  mortified  ; — a  moral  failure. 
Whereas  a  robust  body  and  sharp  senses  looked  like 
strength,  the  true  powers  of  a  glorious  manhood  are  quite 
as  apt  to  be  manifest  in  men  of  broken  health  or  slender 
constitutions.  At  any  rate,  by  the  Christian  plan  of  life, 
we  must  begiu  with  penitence,  or  sorrow  for  the  past ; 
and  what  is  that  but  a  confession  of  weakness  ?  We 
must  become  as  little  children,  in  feeling,  the  Saviour 
says ;  and  what  is  childhood  but  dependence  ?  We  must 
take  up  a  cross ;  and  that  is  a  taking  dowij  of  the  selfish 
part.  We  must  believe ;  and  faith  is  an  acknowledg- 
ment that  we  are  not  sufficient  to  ourselves.  So  this 
new  kingdom  begins  in  this  wonderful  way.  "  When  I  am 
weak,  then  am  I  strong."  Obstacles,  sicknesses,  losses, 
defeats  of  our  plans,  the  breakings  up  of  our  securities, 
are  God's  opportunities;  and  He  knows  how  to  use 
them.  We  watch  the  course  of  our  lives,  and  we  see 
that  what  is  best  has  generally  come  by  self-subjection. 
And  at  last  our  experience  answers  to  this  mystical 
account  given  of  the  heroes  of  the  Bible, — "  Out  of 
weakness  they  were  made  strong." 

St.  Paul  finds  it  necessary  for  once  to  vindicate  his 
apostleship,  and  in  order  to  that,  a  rare  thing  with  him, 
to  vindicate  himself.  After  alluding  to  certain  extra- 
ordinary revelations  which  had  lifted  him  into  the  third 
heaven,  and  would  naturally  tempt  him  to  religious 
vanity,  he  emphatically  discards  any  such  presumption, 
and  goes  on  to  say  that  he  counts  it  a  signal    blessing 


STRENGTH   OUT   OF   WEAKNESS.  235 

that  he  has  always  been  kept  down  and  saved  from  self- 
confidence  by  bodily  disadvantages.  "What  this  "  thorn 
in  the  flesh  "  was  he  does  not  mention ;  the  Corinthians 
he  was  writing  to  knew  : — a  weak  voice,  possibly, — weak 
eyes,  more  likely, — for  he  several  times  alludes  to  his  eyes 
pathetically;  and  if  they  were  permanently  hurt  by 
the  intense  light  at  Damascus,  he  might  very  well  say 
of  them,  "I  bear  in  my  body  the  marks  of  the  Lord 
Jesus : — let  no  man  trouble  me."  (Jewish  traditions  refer 
it  to  convulsions.)  At  any  rate  it  prevented  his  presence 
being  admired,  limited  his  powers  as  an  orator,  and 
quenched  the  hopes  of  public  ambition.  He  felt  it  the 
more  because  by  temperament  he  evidently  relished 
great  natural  vigor.  He  knew,  too,  with  his  "like 
passions,"  that  the  men  he  preached  to  had  a  habit  of 
sneering  at  physical  disfigurements.  Of  course  they 
would  take  occasion  from  his  infirmity  to  disparage  his 
ministry  and  discredit  his  message.  And  so  he  reached 
this  trium^i  of  self-humiliation, — our  special  Lenten 
grace, — only  by  a  tremendous  struggle.  He  carried  it, 
as  his  devout  spirit  took  everything,  into  his  prayers. 
Probably  he  put  his  petition  on  the  ground  that  his 
deformity  abridged  his  usefulness  as  a  preacher.  So  we 
all  pray  when  we  are  not  quite  clear  whether  we  are 
thinking  more  of  God's  glory  or  of  our  own  comfort : 
in  other  words,  whether  it  is  simple  faith  or  a  disgusted 
self-will  that  prompts  the  supplication.  As  with  Peter, 
and  with  Christ,  the  tempter  came  three  times.  Three 
times  Paul  besought  the  Lord  that  the  vexation  might 
depart  from  him.  For  some  mysterious  purpose  it  was 
God's  plan  that  it  should  remain.  But  then  there  rang 
in  his  ears  an  answer  to  that  supplication  which  thrilled 
his  soul  more  profoundly,  and  awoke  in  him  a  far  more 
comforting  assurance  that  he  was  answered,  than  if  a 


236  STRENGTH   OUT   OF   WEAKNESS. 

miracle  had  instantly  healed  every  disordered  fibre  in  his 
frame.  The  Lord  said,  "  My  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee." 
This  trial  must  continue  and  try  thee  still ;  to  take  it  away 
would  be  to  imperil  the  purity  of  that  human  vessel  which 
I  am  refining  to  carry  the  treasure  of  eternal  life  to  the 
gentile  world,  but  My  imparted  grace  shall  continue  too, 
and  never  fail.  Be  that  sufficient  for  thee.  Let  the 
thorn  still  sting  the  flesh.  It  will  not  weaken,  nay,  it 
will  stimulate  and  redouble  the  real  power. 

Now  if  this  had  been  a  sentence  spoken  for  efiect, 
it  would  be  a  paradox  in  rhetoric,  and  nothing  more. 
Coming  from  the  lips  of  our  Lord,  it  declares  a  principle 
of  all  Christian  life  and  growth.  On  the  one  side  we 
see  feebleness,  trembling,  ignorance,  perplexity,  a  dying 
body,  earthen  vessels  : — on  the  other  side,  strength,  cour- 
age, the  demonstration  of  the  Spirit,  the  excellency  of  the 
power,  the  immortal  life  of  Christ.  In  that  contrast, 
made  a  personal  experience  in  our  Christian  discipline, 
lie  the  trial  of  character,  the  ministry  of  ^temptation, 
the  shame  and  splendor  of  the  cross,  and  the  victory  of 
faith  which  overcometh  the  world. 

Something  like  this  we  are  continually  seeing,  as  the 
common  working  of  God's  Spirit,  in  the  characters  of 
men.  Not  one  in  fifty  of  those  who  have  their  hearts 
made  alive  and  earnest  for  Christian  service  are  led  that 
way  by  increased  prosperity ;  by  high  health  ;  by  having 
their  own  way ;  by  any  personal  advantages  whatever. 
Most  of  us  must  have  seen  man  after  man,  yes,  score  of 
men  after  score  of  men,  and  it  is  a  sad  sight  enough,  who 
have  once  taken  up  a  Christian's  work,  and  vowed  them- 
selves to  Christ  at  His  altar,  grow  negligent  of  religious 
duty,  and  gradually  relax  all  the  exercises  of  a  good 
soldier  of  the  Cross,  just  in  proportion  as  they  flourished 
in  business,  rose  in  office,  took  what  might  be  called  an 


STRENGTH   OUT   OF   WEAKNESS.  237 

easy  place  in  the  world,  or  became  "strong"  in  the 
world's  sense.  Accordingly  we  are  just  in  the  best  way 
of  being  made  secure  when  we  are  cast  on  rough  con- 
ditions. Poor  boys  from  the  country,  with  their  whole 
wordly  estate  swinging  in  a  small  satchel  at  their  side, 
are  the  strong-handed  builders  of  institutions,  roads, 
cities,  ships,  and  become  masters  of  all  the  grand  enter- 
prises of  the  world.  David  was  a  great  deal  stronger 
when  he  was  a  stripling  with  a  ruddy  face,  coming  up 
from  the  brook  with  a  few  stones  for  his  sling,  or  when  he 
was  a  hunted  exile,  flying  from  one  rocky  hiding-place  to 
another,  or  when  he  was  on  his  knees  pouring  out  of  a 
broken  heart  the  fifty-first  psalm,  than  when  he  sat  in 
purple  on  his  throne,  and  in  the  fulness  of  his  table  for- 
got his  Maker,  and  had  to  tremble  before  the  prophet. 
How  many  there  are  who  first  take  firmly  hold  of  the 
everlasting  Hand,  when  they  have  felt  all  around  them 
in  the  dark  and  could  find  no  other  hand !  A  man  of 
business  on  the  full  current  of  success,  a  fortune  at  his 
command,  and  a  multitude  dependent  on  him,  looks 
strong  no  doubt  to  himself,  and  to  other  men.  But  some 
day  he  goes  home  from  his  office  with  a  strange  weakness 
in  his  frame ;  he  creeps  up  to  his  chamber  with  it ;  he 
lies  on  his  bed  and  is  faint  under  it ;  his  business  goes 
on  well  enough  without  him ;  and  weeks  after,  when  his 
flesh  and  his  will  and  his  pride  are  all  worn  down,  he  tells 
you,  with  an  accent  that  has  such  a  sound  of  reality  in  it 
as  you  have  heard  in  nothing  he  ever  said  before,  that  all 
his  past  career  has  been  a  superficial  and  miserable  mis- 
take, because  obedience  to  Christ,  and  self-surrender  to 
His  holy  will,  were  not  in  him.  In  his  weakness  he  is 
for  the  first  time  strong.  A  woman  moves  in  brilliant 
circles,  admired,  accomplished,  obeyed :  for  there  is  a 
certain  sway  that  seems  like  power.     But  changes  of 


238  STRENGTH   OUT   OF   WEAKNESS. 

fortune  shut  her  up  in  a  narrow  estate ;  they  unclasp  her 
jewels ;  set  her  to  tending  fretful  invalids,  teaching 
dull  children,  or  dragging  a  feeble  frame  through  the 
drudgeries  of  some  hard  lot;  all  the  radiant  visions 
vanished.  But  there  has  risen,  meantime,  another 
vision :  the  open  way  of  life,  and  the  light  that  is  on  the 
Face  of  the  crucified.  A  voice  has  been  heard  saying, 
"  Thou  art  mine ;  forgiven ;  redeemed ;  My  daughter ;  I 
am  with  thee  in  thy  poverty,  made  poor  Myself  for  thy 
sake;  My  grace  is  sufiicient  for  thee;  no  man  shall 
pluck  thee  out  of  My  hand."  And  now  her  day  of 
power  has  come,  and  with  power,  perfect  peace. 

Familiar  instances, — you  say.  Yes,  very  familiar. 
Look  where  we  will,  the  proofs  will  multiply  upon  us  that 
here  is  a  great  law  of  the  Divine  discipline  with  men, — 
not  wholly  confined  indeed  to  spiritual  things,  but  most 
brightly  manifest  there  and  yielding  its  most  blessed 
fruits  there.  By  some  means  or  other  passion,  pride, 
self-will, — the  "strong  men  armed"  that  keep  this 
world's  house, — must  be  turned  out  before  the  King  of 
Glory  can  come  in.  We  might,  no  doubt,  if  we  would, 
let  God's  goodness  lead  us  to  repentance ;  we  might,  if 
we  would,  grow  straight  up  and  go  straight  on  in  the 
path  of  the  justified.  But,  humiliating  as  it  is,  most 
of  us  have  to  be  scourged  into  our  rest.  The  sunshine 
of  the  Lord's  love  is  not  let  in  on  many  eyes  till  the 
walls  of  the  house  we  trusted  are  shaken  apart.  As  an 
old  English  poet  wrote, 

"The  soul's  dark  cottage,  battered  and  decayed, 
Lets  in  new  light  through  ciiinks  that  time  has  made." 

You  see  St.  Paul  before  his  conversion,  with  his  com- 
manding intellect  and  iron  will  swinging  his  sword  from 
city  to  city  to  strike  down  Christian  disciples,  every- 


STRENGTH   OUT  OF   WEAKNESS.  239 

thing  else  in  him  powerful  but  charity :  and  yet  it  is 
only  when  he  is  sitting  in  darkness,  or  led  about  by 
another's  hand,  sightless,  helpless,  that  his  passions  grow 
cool,  his  heart's  flesh  comes  like  the  flesh  of  a  little 
child,  and  the  power  of  Christ  rises  in  his  soul.  Blind- 
ness, solitude,  humility,  these  stern  hands  fashion  him 
into  that"  brave  and  irresistible  leader  of  the  Church 
whom  all  the  swords  and  dungeons  between  Syria  and 
Spain  cannot  terrify  or  silence.  Elijah  must  hunger; 
John  the  Baptist  must  eat  locusts  and  wild  honey  in  the 
desert;  the  twelve  must  leave  their  homes  and  their 
property;  St.  Peter  must  weep  bitterly — before  they 
can  be  mighty  witnesses,  standing  before  kings. 
Nay  more :  the  King  himself,  in  the  beautiful  language 
of  the  Yisitation  Office,  "  went  not  up  to  joy,  but  first 
He  suffered  pain."  Our  infirmities  are  the  springs  of 
our  victories, — and  hence,  that  we  might  be  made  con- 
querors through  Him,  He  took  our  infirmities  upon  Him. 

Perhaps  something  in  us  prompts  us  to  answer,  "  This 
is  a  very  strange  order  of  things.  Why  should  it  be  so  ? 
"Why  should  not  the  full  health  and  vigor  of  all  parts  of 
our  nature  go  on  and  ripen  harmoniously  together? 
Health  is  certainly  the  normal  state  of  man.  Property 
is  useful.  Why  should  we  have  to  be  spoilt  in  one  part 
of  us  to  strengthen  another  part  ?  Something  must  be 
the  matter." 

Exactly  so ;  something  is  the  matter,  and  that  some- 
thing is  the  bitter  cause  of  all  the  misery,  the  pain,  the 
disappointment,  the  emptiness  and  aching  of  heart  in  the 
children  of  men.  It  is  the  sin  that  doth  so  easily  beset 
us.  God's  loving  order  was  disturbed  because  a  hateful 
human  disorder  came  in,  and  has  never  gone  out. 
Therefore  the  way  to  life  must  be  just  what  it  is: — 
through  suffering  to  peace ;  through  a  wilderness  to  the 


240  STRENGTH   OUT   OF   WEAKNESS. 

land  of  olive  gardens ;  through  fort^^Lenten  days  to  a 
resurrection  jubilee  day ;  through  loneliness,  self-disgust, 
and  emptiness  into  the  city  of  the  living  God,  and  ful- 
ness of  joy. 

Remember,  strength  will  be  poured  into  our  breasts 
from  God,  provided  only  the  bar  that  keeps  it  out  is 
taken  down.  God  is  always  love.  If  ye,  human  parents, 
know  how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  children,  how 
much  more  the  Heavenly  Father !  Only  one  thing  is 
wanting,  that  the  two  bolts, — self-will  and  self-indulgence, 
— be  weakened  till  they  give  way.  Weaken  them,  my 
friends ;  weaken  them  in  every  way, — by  self-reproach, 
by  discipline,  by  taking  up  a  cross,  by  fasting,  by  doing 
duties  that  you  dislike  to  do,  by  disinterested  work  for 
other  men,  and  the  blessed  energy  of  the  Spirit  will  flow 
in.  In  your  weakness  God's  strength  will  be  made  per- 
fect. And  then  you  will  know,  with  St.  Paul,  what  it  is 
to  glory  in  tribulations.  Then  you  will  learn  to  entertain 
sickness  and  sorrow  in  your  houses  as  the  royal  ambassa- 
dors of  the  King  of  Peace.  At  first  Paul  called  his  thorn 
a  messenger  of  Satan  buffeting  him.  After  he  found  out 
why  it  came,  he  called  it  a  gift,  a  love  token,  a  sign  of 
heavenly  favor  from  his  Master.  If  Satan's  angels  are 
sometimes  clothed  as  angels  of  light,  why  not  God's  angels 
in  shadows  ?  If  it  keeps  you  humble,  the  thorn  is  finally 
woven  into  the  crown  of  rejoicing.  O  blessed  infirmities, 
blemishes,  ugliness,  pain,  poor  success,  mortified  ambition, 
ye  are  prophets  and  heralds  of  salvation ;  ye  are  our  se- 
curities from  deeper  and  more  lasting  shame !  "We  ought 
to  learn  some  anthems  to  sing  your  honors  as  pledges  of 
our  heavenly  deliverance.  To  accept  bodily  pain,  or  an 
insignificant  reputation,  or  a  ruined  plan,  even  after  hav- 
ing prayed  against  it,  as  the  veiled  minister  of  mercy,  and 
heartily  to  give  thanks  for  the  scourge, — this  is  to  have 


STRENGTH   OUT   OF   WEAKNESS.  241 

Christ  formed  hy  faith  within.  It  opens  the  interpreta- 
tion of  that  wonderful  saying : — "  Always  bearing  about 
in  tlie  body  tlie  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  that  the  life 
of  Jesus  might  be  made  manifest  in  our  mortal  flesh." 

In  a  prayer  repeated  since  last  Sunday,  all  through 
this  week,  the  Church  makes  us  bold  enough  to  ask  for 
"abstinence,"  that  "the  flesh  may  be  subdued  to  the 
spirit."  The  ground  we  have  gone  over  brings  us  to 
the  basis  of  all  this  penitence  and  self-denial.  It  lies  in 
our  nature  and  constitution  as  well  as  in  the  Scriptures. 

Finally,  you  may  turn  to  society  at  large.  Look  at  a 
whole  city,  in  the  full  tide  of  commercial  prosperity  and 
social  indulgence.  Abundance  shall  run  down  all  the 
streets  like  rivers  of  water.  Every  scene  of  entertain- 
ment, from  the  glittering  play-house  to  the  lowest  haunt 
of  dissipation,  shall  be  nightly  thronged  and  illuminated. 
The  men  shall  build  palaces  as  playthings,  and  the 
women  string  diamonds  as  beads.  The  talk  of  the  town 
shall  be  of  the  last  night's  brilliancy  and  jewelry,  raiment 
and  banquet.  Night  itself  shall  be  turned  into  day, 
not  for  vigils  of  prayer  or  praises  of  the  Great  Bene- 
factor,— if  that  were  done  the  whole  .population  would 
lauirh  aloud  at  the  fanaticism, — but  it  shall  be  done 
night  after  night  for  frivolity,  for  dancing  and  eating 
and  drinking,  for  this  world's  god,  and  no  lip  shall  sneer 
at  it.  There  shall  be  wealth  enough  for  all  this ;  and 
every  new  form  of  ostentation,  and  every  new  avenue 
of  traffic,  and  every  addition  to  the  trappings  of  a  material 
estate  that  wealth  could  provide,  shall  heighten  the 
pomp.  Now,  would  this  be  the  strong  city  ?  What  are 
the  attributes  of  strength?  Self-command,  courage, 
filth,  endurance,  moderation  :  these  are  the  signs  of 
A?;m^?i  strength.  Has  it  these?  God  alone,  the  Ahnighty, 
is  the  source  of  strength ;   and  that  city  alone  is  strong 

16 


242  STRENGTH   OUT   OF   WEAKNESS. 

of  which  it  can  be  said  that  "  God  is  in  the  midst  of 
her."  Can  it  be  said  of  that  city  ?  Character  is  strength, 
and  there  is  no  character  there.  It  is  weakness  at  the 
foundation,  weakness  in  the  superstructure,  weakness  at 
tlie  gates  ;  weakness  in  the  cliambers ;  weakness  at  the 
heart.  You  have  read  history  ;  and  you  know  whether 
Tyre  and  Babylon  and  Rome  just  before  they  fell  were 
strong. 

Turn  from  that  spectacle  to  another.  By  some  Provi- 
dence, the  city  is  humbled.  Its  face  is  sober  and 
thoughtful.  Manners  are  simple  ;  dress  is  plain  ;  indus- 
try is  more  plentiful  than  entertainment;  luxuries  are 
not  seen,  but  charities  are  abundant ;  its  sanctuaries  are 
thronged ;  its  nights  are  still ;  its  people  are  walking  with 
God ;  its  children's  indulgence  is  restrained.  Wisdom 
is  the  ornament  of  grace  about  its  neck.  There  are 
household  prayers  in  all  the  houses.  Righteousness  is 
its  law ;  and  God  is  its  king.  Here  is  strength :  "  Clean 
hands  and  a  pure  heart."  Strong  as  well  as  happy  is  that 
people  whose  God  is  the  Lord. 

Man  is  not  strongest  when  his  head  is  full  of  dreams 
and  calculations  of  gain,  his  heart  full  of  promotion  and 
admiration,  his  hand  full  of  this  world's  gifts,  and  his 
month  full  of  meat  and  wine.  He  is  strong  when  he 
rules  his  spirit;  strong  when  he  works,  and  consecrates 
his  work  to  God  ;  strong  when  he  is  on  his  knees ;  strong 
wlien  he  forgets  himself,  and  lives  in  the  spirit  of  the 
apostle's  declaration:  "It  is  no  more  I  that  live,  but 
Christ  liveth  in  me." 


A  HEAVENLY  MIND  HEEE. 

Fifth  Sunday  in  Lent. 

**FoR  our  conversation  is  in  heaven." — Philippians  iii.  20. 

Whatever  apparent  incompatibility  there  may  be 
between  having  a  residence  in  one  world  and  a  conver- 
sation in  another,  the  religion  of  Christ  boldly  meets 
that  difficulty  and  puts  it  out  of  the  way.  A  life  which 
reconciles  these  contradictory  things  is  not  only  possible 
but  is  the  practical  object  and  the  triumph  of  every 
Christian  man.  Not  only  apostles  but  the  whole  con- 
gregation, not  only  mhiisters  but  men  of  business  and 
young  people,  can  have  their  conversation  in  heaven 
every  day  and  be  none  the  weaker  for  it,  but  greatly 
stronger,  for  all  the  work  of  this  world. 

A  case  easily  supposed  will  illustrate  St.  Paul's  mean- 
ing ;  and  it  is  suggested  by  the  word  translated  in  the 
text  "  conversation."  The  actual  sense  of  that  word,  as 
he  wrote  it,  is  citizenship.  In  the  old  English  of  the 
Bible  and  Prayer  Book,  a  man's  "  conversation  "  meant 
not  the  mere  act  of  his  tongue,  but  the  entire  expression 
of  his  life  in  conduct,  and  so  it  revealed  to  what  king- 
dom his  heart  belonged.  An  American  agent  or  ambas- 
sador has  a  temporary  dwelling  in  Athens.  Living  on 
that  foreign  soil,  occupied  daily,  for  the  time,  with  its 
local  aifairs,  respectful  to  its  institutions,  a  good  neighbor, 
he  never   forgets   his   allegiance  to  a  distant  republic. 


244  A   HEAVENLY    MIND    HERE. 

Tlie  landscape  about  him  may  show  a  beauty  that  wins 
his  admiration ;  the  Greek  faces  and  manners  and  hos- 
pitalities may  gain  his  good-will ;  yet  they  are  not  those 
of  his  native  land.  He  remembers  that  his  stay  is  short ; 
sometimes  he  is  homesick ;  he  expects  to  be  called  back, 
not  long  hence,  where  his  treasure  is  laid  up  and  his 
untravelled  heart  abides ;  he  is  a  stranger  and  sojourner, 
away  from  home. 

This  simple  comparison  answers  the  better,  because  it 
shows  that  when  our  faith  commands  us  to  have  our 
conversation  in  heaven  it  does  not  require  us  to  be 
bad  citizens  of  the  world  where  we  now  are.  We  are 
not  bidden  to  be  absent  minded ;  if  we  were  we  should 
do  poor  w^ork  here,  and  lead  ineffectual  lives.  The 
man  may  form  hearty  attachments  where  he  tarries ;  he 
may  pay  willing  tribute  to  the  city  that  temporarily 
befriends  him  ;  he  may  live  cheerfully  and  helpfully, 
neither  a  complaining  guest  nor  a  fastidious  and  sullen 
recluse.  And  yet,  none  the  less,  as  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  so  grandly  says  of  the  patriarch  who  is  the 
type  of  the  Christian  believer,  he  desires  always  a  better 
country,  which  he  knows, — a  "  city  "  first  in  his  honor, 
dearer  to  his  love,  and  always  in  his  hopes.  So  Christ, 
by  His  doctrine  and  spirit,  reconciles  a  regular  and 
happy  labor  among  the  fields  and  streets  and  markets 
of  this  world  with  a  constant  recollection  that  we  have 
an  eternal  citizenship  above  it.  He  teaches  here,  as  He 
taught  at  Nazareth  and  Jerusalem,  in  the  fishing-boats 
and  on  the  mount,  and  as  it  had  never  been  taught 
before,  that  we  can  be  religiously  faithful  to  every 
present -relationship,  and  yet  never  forget  that  celestial 
patriotism  which  keeps  us  obedient  to  "  the  powers  of 
the  world  to  come."  "We  can  be  busy,  neighborly, 
charitable,  enterprising,  getting  our  livelihood,  making 


A   HEAVENLY    MIND    HERE.  245 

some  eartlily  spot  more  beautiful  as  well  as  more  right- 
eous, and  all  the  time  "  looking  for  and  hastening  unto  " 
an  immortality  infinitely  better, — wearing  on  our  whole 
manhood  or  womanhood  the  stamp  of  a  consecrated  pur- 
pose and  an  unworldly  secret  in  the  soul.  No  man  liv- 
ing to  himself,  no  man  dying  to  himself,  life  and  death 
are  both  transfigured  by  an  indestructible  communion 
with  an  invisible  Friend  and  Lord.  We  can^  by  the 
Spirit's  help,  be  in  the  world  without  "minding" 
earthly  things  selfishly,  greedily,  ambitiously,  or  irre- 
ligiously. This  is  the  original  glory  of  our  Christian 
estate,  and  nothing  less  than  this  is  our  personal  calling, 
as  learners  in  Christ's  school  and  worshippers  in  His 
Church. 

I  say,  the  glory  is  original.  Till  Christ  came,  this 
majestic  fact  in  our  condition,  that  our  little  human  tent 
here  is  overarched  by  an  infinite  heaven  of  light  and 
love  which  really  opens  and  pours  down  a  living  in- 
fluence upon  us,  scarcely  anywhere  broke  through  the 
pagan  shadows.  It  neither  lightened  the  dull  monotony 
of  mortal  labor  nor  consoled  the  bitterness  and  blindness 
of  mortal  sorrow.  Here  and  there,  in  some  half-awakened 
soul,  there  was  a  religious  dream  or  guess, — some  glim- 
mer of  the  light  that  was  to  rise  on  rich  and  poor  alike, — 
some  Athenian  thinker,  such  as  Paul  found  "  feeling  after 
God,  if  haply  he  might  find  Him," — some  solitary  flash 
like  the  stoic  maxim,  "  Deny  thyself  and  aspire,"  almost 
worthy  of  the  Son  of  Man, — some  morning-star  like  the 
reason  of  Plato.  But  these  harbingers  of  the  day  only 
cast  slender  streaks  on  a  few  hill-tops,  showing  how  broad 
and  deep  the  darkness  lay  on  all  the  lands  below.  Men 
looked  downward  at  matter,  or  else  across  the  surface  of 
the  earth  on  their  own  level,  and  their  "  conversation  "  was 
of  its  wars  and  lusts.    It  was  a  civilization  boru  of  appetite 


246  A   HEAVENLY   MIND    HERE. 

and  self-will,  suckled  by  a  wolf,  bred  in  battles,  glori- 
fied in  statues  and  epics  splendid  in  form  but  barbarian 
in  subject  and  spirit.  In  all  the  Asiatic  pomp  there  was 
not  one  house  of  charity  for  sickness,  insanity,  orphan- 
age, or  old  age;  in  the  Alexandrian  science  not  one 
school  of  virtue  or  lesson  of  pure  self-renunciation ;  in 
the  Greek  beautj^  no  beauty  of  holiness ;  in  the  disci- 
pline of  Roman  armies  not  one  crucifixion  of  the  flesh  to 
the  heavenly  law  of  righteousness.  "  The  law  of  the 
members,"  as  the  Epistle  to  those  very  Romans  so  graph- 
ically calls  it,  ruled  the  race : — the  "  law  of  the  spirit  of 
life  in  Christ  Jesus  "  had  not  come.  The  city  they  called 
"  eternal "  was  rotting  into  ruins,  and  the  "  citizenship," 
or  "  conversation,"  was  far  this  side  of  heaven.  How  the 
errors  of  the  mind,  when  let  loose  from  the  obedience  of 
Faith,  run  round  in  circles  and  return!  One  of  the 
audacities  of  modern  sceptical  speculation,  reported  from 
France,  is  a  proposition  that  science  may  so  dispense 
with  the  Almighty  as,  among  the  achievements  of  the 
future,  to  take  command  of  the  forces  of  nature,  stop 
the  process  of  decay,  and  insure  the  globe  itself  against 
the  waste  of  time  and  the  judgment  for  its  sins.  You 
call  it  the  babbling  blasphemy  of  fools.  But  it  is  the 
logical  termination  of  human  thought,  cut  off  by  itself 
from  God,  living  an  utterly  earthly  life.  In  the  midst 
of  such  a  society  as  that  we  see  Christ's  great  convert 
to  the  cross  standing  and  saying,  "  Our  conversation  is 
in  heaven." 

The  earthly  and  the  heavenly  mind^  then.  The  choice 
between  these  two  is  what  our  Gospel,  with  its  anxious 
earnestness,  is  pressing  on  our  conscience. 

"What  hinders?  First  it  is  said,  with  an  accent  of 
complacent  cleverness,  "  We  must  take  the  world  as  it  is : 
there  is  no  use  of  flying  in  the  face  of  an  immense  major- 


A   HEAVENLY    MIND    HERE.  247 

ity :  no  scattered  picket-guard  of  saints,  however  pure, 
can  make  head  against  this  tremendous  mass  of  world- 
liness,  especially  in  crowded  and  eager  centres  of  popu- 
lation. Your  ideal  is  lovely  :  it  is  well  enough  to  hold 
it  up  in  church,  a  seventh-day  picture  of  impossible 
sanctity.  But  while  we  live  in  an  earthly  commonwealth, 
if  we  expect  to  get  07i  with  it^  we  must  keep  on  pleasant 
terms  with  it,  sit  at  its  feasts,  drink  its  health,  and  not 
be  over-critical  as  to  its  principles." 

If  this  answer  were  valid,  it  would  settle  the  whole 
question  at  once,  on  the  anti-Christian  side.  The  Church 
would  be  an  organized  failure.  Instead  of  a  fearless 
witnessing  for  Christ,  and  fighting  against  wrong,  we 
should  have  a  supple  and  cowardly  system  of  mutual 
compromises  and  flatteries.  Men  and  women  would  go 
into  society  to  learn  how  to  live  down  to  each  other's 
weaknesses  and  prejudices.  Christian  salvation  would 
be  an  amiable  dream,  and  moral  courage  a  romantic 
Action.  But  then,  even  the  common,  careless  mind  has 
a  deeper-toned  conviction  than  this.  There  rise  up 
before  us  all  images  of  heavenly-minded  persons  whom 
we  have  known.  Most  people  know  enough  of  the 
story  of  the  past  to  know  that  its  principal  grandeurs 
and  glories  have  gathered  about  the  heads  of  a  few  brave 
and  suffering  and  rather  solitary  men,  who  have  earned 
their  immortal  names  by  standing  out  against  the  fash- 
ionable corruptions  and  falsehoods  of  their  times. 
Inward  voices  respond  in  almost  every  breast  to  the 
righteousness  of  this  order  of  souls,  whether  many  or 
few.  Before  they  give  away  their  manhood  for  the  sake 
of  getting  on  with  the  world,  some  citizens  will  inquire 
to  what  end  the  world  is  getting  on.  And  then,  what- 
ever we  do  or  say,  the  Word  of  God  refuses  to  be  altered, 
and   that   from  first    to    last    tells   us    not    only   that 


248  A    HEAVENLY    MIND    HERE. 

we  can,  but  that  we  must,  unless  Af  e  mean  to  die  eter- 
nally, live  above  the  world  while  we  live  in  it. 

Besides,  falsehood  and  sensuality  were  never  yet  prev- 
alent enough  or  popular  enough,  anywhere,  in  Babylon, 
or  Corinth,  or  Vienna,  or  Paris,  or  here,  to  incapacitate 
any  soul  for  a  clean  and  godly  life,  if  that  soul  chose 
and  willed,  religiously,  to  live  it.  However  low  the 
reigning  tone  of  morals  about  you,  in  club,  or  brokers' 
board,  or  ball-room,  or  political  cabal,  yet  in  your  clearer 
moments  you  feel  that  your  freedom  is  not  crippled,  your 
independence  not  crushed,  your  power  to  strike  out  and 
keep  up  a  line  of  consistent  Christian  action  not  abro- 
gated or  subdued.  Though  nineteen  out  of  twenty  fall 
disgraced,  you  are  able  to  be  the  twentieth  and  stand 
upright.  If  offences  must  come,  you  can  refuse  to  be  the 
offender,  and  refuse  successfully  to  the  end,  because  the 
Almighty  is  on  that  side,  giving  both  secret  inspirations 
and  a  shield  that  no  temptation  can  pierce  through  and 
no  bankruptcy  can  break.  "  Faithful  found  among  the 
faithless"  is  the  record  of  many  a  noble  and  modest 
citizen  here,  true  to  his  secular  trusts,  as  well  as  of  the 
steadfast  seraph  Abdiel  wearing  his  crown  in  heaven. 
All  the  crimes  and  scandals  which  debase  high  places, 
till  it  seems  as  if  no  places  would  be  high  very  long,  ought 
not  to  tempt  us  to  forget  the  ten  righteous  in  a  city 
that  save  it  in  spite  of  the  ten  thousand  that  are  willing 
it  should  be  lost,  and  to  be  lost  with  it. 

And  further,  nothing  in  society  or  custom  takes  off 
the  wrong-doer's  sin,  or  its  retribution;  numbers,  situa- 
tion, opportunity,  example,  rulers  and  chief-priests, 
being  utterly  incompetent  to  alter  an  iota  the  eternal 
contradiction  between  wrong  and  right.  They  may  color 
or  drape  or  baptize  wrong-doing,  but  they  never  change 
its  essence.     The  citizen  in  a  bad  community  who  does 


A   HEAVENLY    MIND    HEEE.  249 

nothing,  says  nothing,  gives  nothing,  to  purify  its  iniqui- 
ties, cannot  say,  "  This  is  a  very  wicked  place,  but  tliat  is 
nothing  to  me ;  it  allows  horrible  abuses  and  facilities 
for  profligacy,  but  that  is  not  my  concern  ;  /  have  no  son 
or  daughter  to  lose  temperance  or  modesty;  extrava- 
gance and  dissipation  are  shockingly  conspicuous,  but 
that  is  no  reason  why  I  should  not  indulge  myself 
privately  if  I  please."  He  cannot  say  that,  because  in 
that  heaven  where  his  heart  ought  to  turn  every  day, 
there  lives  a  God  with  whom  multitudes  of  people,  and 
established  usages,  and  municipal  officers,  and  polite 
concealments,  are  not  of  the  least  account ;  to  whom 
there  is  no  privacy,  and  from  wdiom  no  secrets,  of  chamber 
or  alley  or  intrigue  or  fraud,  are  hid.  No  more  can 
a  dishonest  merchant  excuse  himself  by  quoting  unscru- 
pulous or  accommodating  maxims  of  trade,  and  say- 
ing, "  My  business  is  adjusted  to  the  moral  scale  of  my 
class ;  as  long  as  I  am  up  to  the  average  mark  I  am  safe ; 
if  I  do  bring  up  my  sons  or  my  clerks  to  take  advan- 
tages which  will  not  bear  daylight, — that  is  the  fault  of 
commerce,  and  not  mine."  He  cannot  say  that,  because 
neither  buyer  nor  seller,  or  the  board  of  trade,  makes  the 
moral  law  or  modifies  it;  and  God  has  set  you  down 
there,  an  individual  soul,  on  purpose  to  bear  testimony, 
by  straight  accounts  and  fair  bargains,  against  the  vast 
and  evil  thing,  and  not  to  hide  behind  it.  The  partisan, 
in  Church  or  State,  cannot  say,  "  Heckon  with  my 
party,  not  with  me."  He  has,  if  not  a  citizenship,  a 
judge  in  a  country  where  he  must  reckon,  without  his 
party,  for  what  he  helped  make  his  party  to  be.  "We 
who  take  our  shameful  part  so  easily  in  petty  apologies 
and  artifices  and  winkings  at  social  laxity,  cannot  say, 
at  the  Divine  tribunal,  "Blame  society; — I  only  went 
with  the  rest,  and  was  no  worse  than  they."     For  God's 


250  A    HEAVENLY    MIND    HERE. 

practical  Truth  will  answer  us,  How  then  is  Christ's 
kingdom  ever  to  come  ?  How  is  the  load  of  the  w^orld's 
iniquity  ever  to  be  thrown  off?  You  may  presume 
that  these  sins  will  continue,  do  what  you  will, — and 
that  may  be  true.  Offences  will  come,  but  "  woe  to  that 
man  by  whom  they  come." 

Before  it  has  done,  Christianity  means  undoubtedly  to 
reach  society,  on  the  broad  scale ;  but  it  must  reach  it 
through  persons,  gathered  one  by  one  into  its  own  heav- 
enly ''  citizenship."  It  has  to  do  wdth  conviction,  affec- 
tion, faith ;  and  these  are  always  properties  of  persons 
before  they  can  be  of  nations  or  communities.  The 
Saviour  did  not  publish  a  plan  of  political  reform,  or  a 
schedule  of  social  science.  Meeting  His  countrymen  in 
little  groups,  or  one  by  one,  as  they  came.  He  sliowed 
them  what  was  in  His  heart,  and  showed  them  the 
ineffable'  beauty  of  a  holy  and  blessed  "  conversation  " 
with  His  Father,  while  they  were  yet  fishermen  and  pub- 
licans, and  reapers  and  water-carriers,  about  their  houses 
and  fields.  So  began  the  everlasting  empire  and  the 
everlasting  age  of  righteousness  through  love,  which 
was  in  time  to  lift  itself  over  the  palaces  at  Constanti- 
nople and  Home.  Before  men  knew  it.  He  had  planted 
a  kingdom  to  fill  and  possess  the  earth, — ^planted  it  just 
where  alone  it  could  be  planted,  in  the  living  heart  and 
will  of  certain  individuals  who  had  ceased  minding 
earthly  things,  or  minded  heavenly  things  far  more. 
And  so,  precisely.  He  meets  us  to-day.  With  all  His 
spirit  of  sacrifice  and  mighty  power  of  redemption, 
with  the  cross  on  His  shoulders  and  the  scar  in  His  side, 
He  comes  to  each  one  of  us,  and  speaks.  We  all  desire 
to  have  America  a  Christian  country.  Then  we  must 
be  Christian  men  in  America.  We  would  all,  I  am 
sure,  have  ours  a  Church  practically  Christian,  in  the 


A    HEAVENLY    MIND    HERE.  251 

power  of  the  Spirit  and  in  all  holy  and  charitable  action, 
arising  and  shining  on  tlie  tops  of  the  mountains,  like  an 
army  with  peaceable  banners.  Then  we  must  be  Chris- 
tian members  of  it,  in  conviction,  in  principle,  in  what 
we  do  and  what  we  refuse  to  do,  in  the  company  we 
keep  and  the  company  we  let  alone,  sustaining  as 
consistently  as  we  can,  and  without  ostentation,  a  heav- 
enly conversation.  Precisely  the  strength  of  our  practi- 
cal endeavor  to  do  this  will  be  the  measure  of  our 
Christian  sincerity  and  progress. 

My  friends,  there  is  a  particular  reason  for  these 
thoughts.  There  are,  doubtless,  persons  in  this  House 
who  have  not  consciously  made  up  their  minds  to  keep 
God's  commandments  out  and  out,  through  and  through, 
asking  God  for  help, — and  yet  they  would  be  shocked  at 
the  idea  of  our  social  life  returning  to  barbarism.  There 
are  others  farther  on,  nominally  Christian,  publicly  com- 
plimenting general  religion  and  applauding  Christian 
institutions,  without  pretending  to  conform  their  person- 
al practice  to  Christ's  law  of  spiritual  life.  This  notion 
that  we  are  any  safer  or  any  better  for  living  in  a  land 
of  a  professed  Christianity,  whose  principles  we  daily 
ignore  and  whose  most  sacred  duties  we  shuffle  aside,  is 
one  of  those  delusions  that  show  their  absurdity  the 
moment  they  are  noted  in  language.  What  our  most 
intelligent  Christians  need  to  realize  fxr  more  clearly  than 
they  do  is  that  every  scheme  attempting  to  cure  the  bad 
morals  of  the  people  comes  short  and  must  tail,  unless  it 
goes  down  to  the  root  and  heart  of  the  matter  by  begin- 
ning with  faith  in  God,  and  putting  the  soul  into  a  direct 
and  earnest  conversation  with  Him. 

In  these  times  the  Faith  is  put  back  and  kept  down 
not  so  much  by  persecution  as  by  corruption.  AVe  live 
in  days  of  indulgence,  and  days  of  education,  and  so 


252  A   HEAVENLY    MIND    HERE. 

temptation  comes  in  under  physical  and  literary  luxury. 
Ever  since  Eve's  parley  with  Satan  in  Eden  it  has  been 
the  strategy  of  evil  to  gain  admission  v^ithout  having  its 
character  suspected.  If  the  moral  sense  is  obstinate  and 
will  not  yield,  teach  it  to  call  evil  goo.d.  If  conscience 
defies  a  sword,  drug  it  with  narcotics.  This  is  the  gen- 
eralship that  captures  a  besieged  city  by  poisoning  the 
fountains  at  which  the  people  drink,  when  the  walls  are 
too  thick  to  be  battered  down  by  assault.  Once  radically 
unsettle  a  man's  mind  as  to  the  obligations  of  duty,  and 
you  work  a  far  more  comprehensive  depravity  in  him 
than  by  only  enticing  him  now  and  then  into  single  bad 
actions,  against  which  his  conscience  continues  to  cry 
out.  You  make  him  the  servant  of  all  unclean  work  in 
the  household  of  the  senses.  If,  by  listening  to  the 
sophistry  of  the  appetites,  I  can  really  come  to  believe 
that  things  are  tolerable  which  God  has  declared  sinful, 
I  see  no  breakwater  after  that  to  keep  the  whole  muddy 
sea  of  sensuality  from  pouring  its  foul  flood  over  me. 
For  as  the  whole  quality  of  a  Christian  liqs  in  the  choice 
of  the  hearty  so  the  lowest  and  last  perdition  is  wdiere  the 
very  faculty  of  choice  is  perverted.  As  this  deteriora- 
tion goes  on,  so  gradual  is  it  that  we  have  to  look  over  a 
long  interval  to  mark  the  steps  of  the  decline.  It  is 
vain  to  deny,  for  instance,  that  respectable  families  allow 
their  sons  and  daughters  the  forms  of  social  liberty  which 
fifty  years  ago  their  wiser  fathers  w^ould  have  been 
ashamed  of,  and  which  now  yield  no  particle  of  addi- 
tion to  their  joy  or  honor.  There  are  encroaching  irrev- 
erences that  take  down,  little  by  little,  the  strict  and 
holy  standard  wdiich  keeps  the  soul  near  to  Christ,  and 
which,  like  the  flying  fiery  cross  among  the  faithful 
Highlanders,  should  recall  brave  hearts  to  the  front- 
places  in  the  Christian  fight.     These  are  the  perils  to  be 


A   HEAVENLY    MIND    HEKE.  253 

watched  if  our  Christian  stability,  our  civil  order,  our 
public  virtue,  our  Church  of  Clirist  are  to  stand  fast,  or 
our  own  souls  are  to  live. 

And  so  the  true  confessors  of  this  age  are  the  men  and 
women  who  exercise  their  consciences  day  by  day  to  dis- 
cern between  evil  and  good ;  men  and  women  who 
replenish  their  spiritual  strength  by  prayers  in  their 
families,  and  prayers  in  their  closets  ;  souls  that  keep  so 
far  back  within  the  entrenchments  of  a  heavenly  citizen- 
ship as  to  be  out  of  all  risk  of  slipping  over  into  dishonor; 
men  of  business  that  will  not  take  a  second  look  at  the 
tempter  for  an  additional  thousand  in  their  year's  income  ; 
young  men  who  will  sooner  resign  profitable  places 
and  turn  to  less  tasteful  work  than  let  an  initiation  into 
meanness  and  lying  be  a  part  of  their  training  to 
"  success "  ;  women  who  choose  that  good  part  with 
Mary's  Friend,  rather  than  wade  through  anbiguities 
neck-deep  to  conquests  of  social  ambition ;  children  that 
would  rather  be  laughed  at  than  disobey,  and  rather  mas- 
ter their  passions  than  each  other : — all  souls  that  have 
made  the  glorious  choice  between  Christ  and  this  world, 
while  in  this  world,  these  are  they  that  live  heavenly 
lives,  and  make  this  world  heavenlike. 

There  are  certainly  two  worlds  within  us,  as  well  as 
earth  and  heaven  without  us ;  and  one  of  them  is  apt  to 
get  the  mastery  and  press  the  other  down.  Take  as  the 
divine  image  of  the  one  of  these,  the  Saviour's  sacramental 
prayers  in  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  St.  John,  or  St. 
Paul's  description,  at  the  close  of  the  eighth  to  the 
Romans,  of  the  love  of  God,  from  which  neither  life  nor 
death  will  separate  him.  For  the  other  take  any  un- 
believing sensualist's  frank  testimony: — take  Lord  Ches- 
terfield's, who  was  a  type  of  his  class.  "  I  have  run,"  he 
says,  "  the  rounds  of  business  and  pleasure,  and  have 


254:  A   HEAVENLY    MIND    HEEE. 

done  with  them  all.  Shall  I  tell  jou  that  I  bear  this 
melancholy  situation  with  resignation  ?  ]^o  ;  I  bear  it 
because  I  must.  I  think  of  nothing  but  killing  time, 
now  it  has  become  my  enemy,  and  my  resolution  is  to 
sleep  in  the  carriage  to  the  end  of  the  journey."  ^ow  to 
say  nothing  of  what  happens  when  the  journey  ends,  and 
of  the  waking  out  of  sleep,  and  of  the  new  question  that 
will  rise  before  a  man  who  has  so  poorly  succeeded  in 
killing  time,  that  time  killed  him, — viz.,  how  to  kill 
eternity, — leaving  all  that,  we  see  the  contradiction 
between  the  two  worlds  complete.  The  warfare  between 
the  principles  that  lie  at  the  roots  of  them  is  a  deadly 
warfare,  and  still  it  goes  on. 

It  has  gone  on  another  season.  All  around  you  the 
lower  life  has  had  more  than  its  share.  This  is  not  a 
professional  judgment.  It  comes  from  those  who  live  in 
the  midst  of  it.  The  tide  runs  over-fast,  and  over-full. 
This  world  has  had  enough,  too  much,  for  a  nation  need- 
ing regeneration  as  much  as  ours  ;  too  much  for  a  Church 
which  is  yet  a  Church  in  the  wilderness ;  too  much  for 
earnest  followers  of  a  Master  who  hungered  and 
sorrowed  for  them,  owing  all  they  have  to  Him.  Look 
up,  above  it.  Set  your  hurried  waj's  and  self-delighting 
houses  into  a  holier  order.  Keep  under  the  body,  and 
bring  it  into  subjection.  Standing  in  these  Lenten  days 
under  the  shadow  of  the  cross,  gather  clear-sightedness, 
iind  inward  power,  and  by  dying  to  sin  live  unto  God. 


SPIEITUAL  WASTE  AND  WEALTH. 
Palm  Sunday^  or  Sunday  hefore  Easter, 

"  He  that  gathereth  not  with  Me  scattereth."— /S'^.  Luke  xi.  23. 

In  the  material  economy  no  such  rule  is  laid  down  ; 
no  such  necessity  exists.  We  can  fold  our  hands  and 
stand  still,  neither  scattering  nor  gathering.  We  can 
direct  our  energies  or  withhold  them.  In  all  that  sphere 
of  life  which  man  holds  in  common  with  the  inferior 
animal  orders  he  can  expend  his  force  here  or  there 
without  being  said  to  rob  merely  because  he  does  not 
give. 

But  when  we  rise  into  the  range  of  relations  that 
are  spiritual  we  pass  under  a  new  and  peculiar  law. 
Freedom  remains.  It  is  enlarged.  But  irrespective  of 
our  own  arrangement,  we  find  we  are  subject  to  this 
condition,  in  respect  to  one  Supreme  Spirit, — that  if  we 
are  not  serving  Him  we  are  wronging  Him  ;  if  we  are 
not  working  in  the  line  of  His  loving  and  bountiful 
plans,  we  are  striving  against  Him  ;  if  we  are  not  gath- 
ering with  Him, — gathering  wisdom  and  strength  and 
purity  and  greater  capacity  for  good  and  other  "  fruit 
unto  everlasting  life," — then  we  are  wasting  what  belongs 
to  Him.  We  are  in  a  necessary  stewardship,  and  this  is 
one  of  its  laws.  The  law  may  look  exacting  in  the 
statement,  but  it  is  glorious  in  its  operation.     Neutrality, 


256  SPEBITUAL   WASTE   AND   WEALTH. 

not  only  in  the  posture  of  our  affections,  but  in  the  use 
of  our  active  powers,  is  impossible. 

Not  far  from  each  of  the  great  scenes  of  our  Saviour's 
ministry  tliere  was  a  third  party,  taking  no  apparent 
share  in  the  transaction.  Those  that  sided  openly  with 
Him  and  publicly  confessed  their  loyalty,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  those  that  expressly  opposed  Him,  on  the 
other,  became  of  course  conspicuous  in  the  conflicts  that 
sprang  up  about  Him.  By  their  direct  opposition  to 
each  other.  Apostles  and  Pharisees,  the  family  at 
Bethany  and  the  Council  at  Jerusalem,  John  and  Judas, 
Zaccheus  and  Herod,  Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  Pilate, 
immediately  suggest  to  us  two  distinct  classes  of  people, 
— the  friends  and  the  enemies  of  the  Son  of  God. 
Decided  convictions  always  throw  men  into  definite 
positions. 

ISTear  by,  however,  you  might  always  find  another 
class,  more  numerous,  probably,  than  either  of  them. 
They  are  not  brought  forward  into  notice,  because  no 
real  interest  or  choice  brought  them  visibly  into  the 
struggle  that  was  going  on.  Other  things  absorbed  their 
attention.  This  Divine,  disinterested  Redeemer,  who 
had  come  from  heaven  to  speak  to  what  was  deepest  and 
best  in  their  hearts,  to  take  all  their  burdens  and  sick- 
nesses upon  Himself  that  He  might  call  them  more 
effectually  to  honor  and  immortality,  was  walking  their 
streets  and  waiting  at  their  doors.  It  was  told  along  the 
highways,  in  villages  and  cities,  "  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
is  passing  by."  They  neither  hindered  nor  followed 
Him.  The  routine  of  the  day's  business,  family  festivi- 
ties, social  pleasure,  bargains  to  be  begun  or  closed  in 
tbe  market,  each  one's  little  busy  world  of  care  or  dis- 
play or  profit,  was  enough.  What  if  the  Lord  of  all 
life,  the  Healer  of  all  miseries,  and  final  Judge  of  all 


SPIRITUAL   WASTE   AND   WEALTH.  257 

souls,  is  passing  by  ?  Let  Him  pass.  Give  us  a  little 
more  of  this  world ;  give  us  the  meat  that  perislieth ; 
give  us  popular  envy  and  ascendency ;  give  us  to-day's 
abundance.  What  is  Nazareth  or  its  Prophet  to  us  ? 
Answer  Him  as  He  stands  at  the  door  and  knocks,  and 
tell  Him  there  is  no  room  for  Him  in  our  houses ;  we 
are  engaged  and  cannot  see  Him ;  in  this  great  tavern  of 
a  world,  as  in  the  inn  at  Bethlehem,  there  is  no  room  for 
Him.     The  world  ignores  its  King. 

It  was  so  on  that  strange,  excited  morning,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  Passion-week,  which  this  Palm  Sunday  com- 
memorates. For  some  unexplained  reason,  there  must  be 
the  outward  spectacle  of  a  royal  reception  of  the  Messiah 
into  His  own  city.  He  comes  unto  His  own  nation,  and 
His  own  received  Him  not,  because  He  came  as  a  sacrifice 
and  a  servant.  Yet  they  must  appear  to  receive  him. 
Hosannas,  branches  of  the  palm,  the  olive  and  the  cedar, 
torn  from  the  trees,  garments  spread  in  the  road,  must 
make  up  the  wild  and  melancholy  demonstration  of  a 
hollow  or  at  best  a  half-instinctive  enthusiasm.  Christ's 
journey  towards  the  cross  begins  with  this  sacrificial 
anguish  at  the  acclamations  of  a  populace  who  knew  not 
what  they  did : — hosannas  on  their  lips  to-day,  but  mal- 
edictions and  "  Crucify  Him,"  five  days  hence !  Palm- 
branches  waving  on  the  heights  of  Olivet  one  day, 
slumbers  of  heavy  eyes  or  careless  vigils  in  the  garden  of 
agony  four  days  after !  In  the  midst  of  this  jubilant 
concourse.  He  wept.  Here  were  the  two  parties  then  : — 
a  frenzied  and  mistaken  multitude  in  the  streets ;  a  plot- 
ting and  hating  cabal  of  jealous  rulers  and  scribes  at  the 
court-room  in  the  city.  But,  remember,  between  these, 
and  all  around  them  both,  was  a  greater  company,  that 
we  hear  nothing  about:  indifferent,  undecided;  not 
planning  murder  for  the  Nazarene,  with  the  Pharisees ; 

17 


258  SPIRITUAL    WASTE    AND    WEALTH. 

not  following  in  admiration  with  his  friends  ;  but  caring 
for  none  of  these  things.  Thes^  were  travellers  making 
their  way,  that  day,  engrossed  with  their  own  affairs, 
from  Jerusalem  out  to  Bethany,  or  on  to  Jericho,  or 
over  to  the  Jordan,  who  only  uttered  an  exclamation  of 
impatience  or  contempt  that  their  way  was  blocked  up, 
and  their  business  delayed,  by  this  intruding  stranger, — 
just  as  men  complain  now  when  the  Church  interrupts 
their  traffic  with  her  worship,  or  when  Providence  shuts 
them  into  a  sick-chamber  that  they  may  repent  and  lay 
hold  of  life.  Yery  likely  there  were  men  and  even 
women  there  that  He  had  healed  once,  or  whose  chil- 
dren He  had  healed,  who  had  gone  back  to  their  houses 
to  enjoy  an  ungrateful  comfort,  and  to  make  a  selfish 
waste  of  the  lives  His  mercy  had  lengthened  out ;  blind 
men  whose  eyes  He  had  opened,  that  looked  upon  every- 
thing else  than  His  blessed  countenance  ;  withered  hands 
that  He  had  made  whole,  which  gathered  not  for  His 
garner,  nor  even  reached  out  for  a  palm-branch  to  honor 
Him ;  tongues  there,  whose  strings  He  had  loosened, 
that  would  not  speak  His  name  or  join  in  the  hosannas. 
They  probably  imagined  they  took  no  part  against  Him. 
They  certainly  took  no  part  for  Him,  or  against  His 
enemies. 

It  was  so  with  the  still  more  august  and  solemn  events 
that  followed.  It  was  so  on  the  night  of  the  Supper, 
when  the  little  band  went  out  in  silence,  under  the 
Paschal  moon,  from  the  upper  chamber  to  Gethsemane, 
and  when  the  soldiers,  led  by  the  traitor,  crept  into  the 
shaded  garden  with  their  torches,  and  fell  to  the  ground 
before  the  face  of  the  Son  of  Man.  It  w^as  so  the  day 
after,  when  a  few  persons  collected  aBout  the  Judgment 
Hall.  It  was  so,  later,  from  the  sixth  to  the  ninth  hour, 
when  the  sudden  darkness  and  the  earthquake  startled 


SPIRITUAL    WASTE   AND   WEALTH.  259 

the  people  witli  the  exclamation  that  the  Lamb  of  God, 
"  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world,"  was  dying. 
It  was  so  in  the  wonderful  reports  that  filled  the  air, 
Easter  morning.  It  has  been  so  ever  since,  in  all  the 
Palm  Sundays,  all  the  Good  Fridays  and  Easter  Sun- 
days, all  the  fasts  and  feasts,  all  the  days  of  death  and 
burial,  all  the  years,  all  the  ages.  It  will  be  so  this 
coming  week.  The  greater  number  are  those  that  take 
no  open  part  for  the  Master  or  against  Him.  Doing 
nothing, — by  honest  confession,  by  a  brave  enrolment, 
by  the  obedience  of  faith, — to  gather  treasure  for  Christ, 
they  imagine  they  are  doing  nothing  to  scatter  and 
waste  it. 

He  speaks  to  that  large  third  class  among  you  to-day. 
If  there  is  any  question  about  that  position, — as  to  its 
rightfulness,  or  its  safety,  or  where  those  that  are  trying 
to  hold  it  really  belong, — does  He  not  settle  that  ques- 
tion by  the  text  ?  "  He  that  gathereth  not  with  Me 
scattereth." 

Just  before,  the  evangelist  says,  Christ  had  been 
speaking,  with  fearful  emphasis,  of  the  two  hostile  king- 
doms, which  forever  confront  each  other  in  this  world. 
The  strong  one  armed  keepeth  his  own  palace.  He 
will  never  surrender  it,  or  one  particle  of  it,  in  any 
human  soul,  till  a  stronger  than  he, — and  there  is  only 
one  stronger, — binds  him.  He  will  seem  to  surrender 
it ;  he  will  call  it  by  some  innocent  name ;  he  will  cover 
it  with  a  Christian  title ;  he  will  deceive,  flatter,  prom- 
ise, and  manage ;  he  will  transform  himself  into  an  angel 
of  light ;  but  he  will  do  it  all  to  keep  his  own.  Equally 
exclusive,  over  against  that  dark  kingdom,  is  the  king- 
dom of  light :  open,  candid,  without  concealment  or 
evasion,  rejoicing  in  the  truth,  all  its  deeds  done  in  the 
day,  but  admitting  no   admixture,  no   compromise,  no 


260  SPIRITUAL   WASTE   AND   WEALTH. 

neutrality.  Everywhere,  wliat  fellowship  hath  light 
with  darkness?  Anywhere,  what  part  hath  the  true 
subject  with  the  traitor  ?  In  every  soul,  these  two  king- 
doms and  their  laws  are  contrary  the  one  to  the  other. 
It  is  remarkable,  in  all  the  Gospel,  how  invariable  and 
how  clear  Christ  makes  this  doctrine  of  absolute  and 
necessary  separation.  There  is  no  third  party  after  all. 
There  is  no  place  for  one.  Non-profession  does  not 
make  non-allegiance,  or  neutrality.  It  makes  allegiance 
to  the  enemy.  It  makes  disloyalty.  "He  that  is  not 
with  Me  is  against  Me." 

The  universality  of  this  twofold  law,  therefore,  and 
the  impossibility  that  any  human  being  in  Christendom 
should  so  escape  from  it  as  to  stand  neither  with  God 
nor  with  His  enemies,  is  the  iirst  great  truth  of  the  sub- 
ject. Into  that  sharp  conflict  that  is  going  on  between 
the  two  kingdoms  everything  is  drawn.  Nobody  lives  ; 
nothing  by  any  moral  agent,  any  man,  is  done ;  nothing 
is  thought,  written,  spoken,  built,  bought  or  sold,  begun 
or  finished,  outside  the  field  of  that  warfare  and  the 
necessity  of  that  choice. 

The  next  truth  to  be  remembered  is  our  dangerous 
liability  to  be  deceived  just  at  that  point,  i.  e.^  to  reckon 
as  harmless  or  safe  courses  of  life  that  are  really  anti- 
Christian.  Between  the  Church  and  the  dens  of  gam- 
blers, drunkards,  thieves,  and  profligates,  between  the 
communion-table  and  the  jail,  there  runs  a  broad  strip  of 
moral  territory,  wearing  a  respectable  look  ;  it  seems  to 
belong  neither  to  the  one  nor  to  the  other.  Why  not 
set  up  over  that  territory,  including  so  much  of  business, 
society,  study,  and  so  many  people,  the  name  of  Chris- 
tianity ?  Why  not  let  it  pass  as  Christian  ground,  with 
all  its  mixed  companies,  selfish  passions,  and  worldly 
practices  ?     "  Heathenism  "  has  a  bad  sound. 


SPmmiAL   WASTE   AND   WEALTH.  261 


All  this  might  very  well  be  if  Christ  had  not  come 
and  revealed  another  law  and  another  judgment.  The 
moment  He  appears, — and  wherever  the  Gospel  is 
preached  He  does  appear, — then  separation  begins. 
Reveal  to  any  commnnity  a  new  trutli  or  propose  a 
new  reform,  and  it  acts  at  once  as  a  touchstone  of 
their  quality.  According  as  they  receive  or  reject  it 
they  are  driven  apart.  But  when  Christ  comes,  He 
comes  as  the  Lord  of  every  soul  that  lives;  the  truth 
He  reveals  is  universal  truth.  He  is  not  concerned 
for  a  majority;  He  wants  purity:  "first  pure,  then 
peaceable."  The  more  He  can  gain,  the  more  will 
the  infinite  compassion  of  His  loving  heart  rejoice; 
but  be  the  penitents  and  the  believers  many  or  few,  the 
repentance  must  be  true,  the  faith  hearty,  the  allegiance 
above  suspicion.  So  He  says,  "  He  that  gathereth  not 
with  Me  scattereth."  If  there  are  any,  here  or  else- 
where, who  think  they  do  enough  because  they  are  not 
positive  opponents,  mockers  or  infidels ;  who  think  that, 
because  they  never  persecute,  or  revile,  or  take  a  traitor's 
silver,  or  meet  to  plot  with  Scribes  and  Pharisees  for 
Herod,  therefore  they  are  not  secretly  fighting  against 
their  eternal  King,  Christ  here  assigns  them  tlieir  place 
with  terrible  distinctness.  Unlike  the  politic  leaders  of 
earthly  kingdoms,  He  fearlessly  casts  this  middle-party 
from  Him, — that  it  may  thereby  become  truly  His.  All 
are  scatterers  that  are  not  gatherers  with  Him.  There  is 
a  striking  record,  in  the  Book  of  Numbers,  of  a  prophet 
who  tried,  in  perilous  days,  tc  be  on  neither  side,  and  pal- 
tered with  a  double  tongue  between  the  true  God  and  His 
enemies ;  but  at  last  the  issue  between  the  two  armies 
could  be  no  longer  evaded,  and,  after  the  battle,  the  body 
of  this  compromising  neutral,  Balaam,  was  found  on  the 
enemy's  side,  where  it  fell  fighting  against  the  Lord. 


262  spiEiTUAL  waste"  and  wealth. 

It  is  in  this  sense  that  Christ  comes  to  put  men  and 
families  of  men  "  at  variance  "  with  one  another, — a 
strange  thing  to  be  written  of  Him.  It  is  not  for  divis- 
ion's sake,  but  onlj  that  truth  may  not  be  confounded 
with  a  lie,  darkness  be  called  light,  and  the  very  founda- 
tions of  all  honor  guilt.  There  can  be  no  lasting  harmony, 
no  healthy  peace,  but  in  Him  in  whom  all  things  in 
their  unity  consist. 

"  First  pure,  then  peaceable."  Man  cannot  be  really 
reconciled  to  man,  save  as  he  is  first  reconciled  to  his 
God ;  and  there  is  only  one  Reconciler.  In  Him  alone  is 
humanity  restored,  and  man  made  one  with  his  brother. 
Not  to  gather  with  Him  and  for  Him,  is  to  divide  and 
scatter.  It  is  He  that  "maketh  men  to  be  of  one  mind 
in  a  house,"  in  a  nation,  in  a  Church,  in  heaven. 

This  eternal  doctrine  needed  never  to  be  more  plainly 
repeated  than  now,  when  the  contest  is  not  with  Baal 
and  Ashtaroth,  Jupiter  or  Minerva,  or  any  god  of  the  old 
mythologies,  or  with  avowed  infidelity,  so  much  as  with 
a  habit  of  dropping  out,  one  by  one,  all  the  divine  and 
glorious  elements  of  Christ's  own  peculiar  kingdom,  and 
thinking  to  gather  for  human  comfort  or  wealth,  for 
social  or  sanitary  or  literary  "  progress,"  without  gather- 
ing for  Him.  A  few  years  ago  a  charitable  sisterhood 
for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  was  established  in  London. 
A  writer  in  one  of  the  public  periodicals  described  a  visit 
he  had  made  to  their  establishment,  and  after  giving  a 
most  interesting  account  of  the  self-denying  labors  of  these 
refined  and  delicately  bred  women,  he  says,  "he  was 
curious  to  learn  the  motives  that  prompted  them  to  take 
up  sacrifices  so  irksome  and  repulsive.  lie  supposed  it 
was  human  pity,  or  a  natural  benevolence  toward  the 
beneficiaries;  on  inquiry  he  was  surprised  to  find  this 
was  not  the  case  at  all,  but  the  strong  principle  which 


SPIRITUAL   WASTE   AND   WEALTH.  263 

actuated  tliem  was  a  religions  self-rennnciation  for 
Christ's  sake."  They  loved  the  wretched  and  the  poor 
because  they  saw  in  them  the  objects  of  the  Saviour's 
tenderness,  souls  for  wliich  He  died,  immortal  spirits 
tliey  were  to  meet  hereafter  in  His  kingdom  wear- 
ing His  image.  They  gathered  for  Him.  That  is  the 
deepest,  strongest,  and  only  lasting  power  of  good  works. 
"We  may  fancy  we  can  substitute  other  things :  amiability, 
philanthropy,  political  economy,  a  material  civilization : 
— they  are  all  excellent  as  jparts  of  Chrisfs  kingdom, 
but  all  weak,  illusory,  a  mere  scattering  under  the  ap- 
pearance of  gathering,  if  they  are  taken  apart  from  Him 
and  set  up  for  a  religion.  The  Gospel  never  admits  for 
a  moment  the  possibility  of  such  a  thing  as  a  Christianity 
without  Christ.  It  is  not  enough  to  keep  the  old  name ; 
we  must  cling  to  the  Eternal  Person,  if  we  would  live  His 
everlasting  life. 

O  Divine  Teacher  and  Prophet,  persuade  us  of  this ! 
Good  Shepherd,  who  wouldst  gather  us  all  together 
when  we  were  scattered  abroad ;  Blessed  Friend,  who 
wast  for  us  when  all  else  were  against  us,  suffer  us  not  to 
be  found  indifferent,  undecided ;  for  so  we  shall  be  found 
against  Thee ! 

All  is  wasted  then  that  is  not  done  with  a  heart  of  love? 
and  that  toward  God ;  all  time  that  is  not  spent  foi 
Him, — these  days  of  busy  labor,  in  trades  and  profes- 
sions; these  unsatisfying  contortions  of  effort  to  be  a 
little  richer,  or  a  little  more  noticed,  or  to  climb  one 
round  more  on  the  ladder  that  you  will  slip  from  the 
instant  death  touches  your  fingers ;  these  plans,  schemes, 
travels,  bargains,  buildings ; — they  look  like  gathering, 
but  they  are  only  scattering,  unless  in  the  midst  of  them 
all  your  character  is  daily  built  up,  a  spiritual  house, 
Jesus    Christ    himself   being:    the   chief    corner-stone. 


264  SPERITUAL    WASTE   AND   WEALTH. 

Gather  with  Him  and  all  the  parts  of  jour  life  which  are 
yet  alien  or  iniirm  He  will  steadily  draw  into  the  unity 
of  His  own  Body,  making  it  strong  and  pure  and  im- 
mortal, knit  together  and  making  increase  by  the 
edifj'ing  of  His  love. 

This  morning,  not  with  palms  but  with  praises,  we 
welcome  Christ  as  our  King.  He  is  our  King  ;  we  are 
His  subjects ; — but  what  kind  of  subjects  ?  decided  or 
wavering  ?  hiding  the  badge  and  colors  of  His  calling,  or 
bravely  confessing  Him  before  the  world  ?  Behold,  thy 
King  Cometh  !  Open  to  him  the  heart,  the  true  Zion 
where  he  loves  to  dwell ;  otherwise  He  will  look  upon  it 
only  to  weep  over  it.  Bring  Him  into  the  city  of  your 
souls  with  the  acclamations  of  a  full  faith,  and  follow 
Him  to  His  Passion  with  a  sincere  repentance,  that  you 
may  rise  with  Him,  at  his  Kesurrection,  into  newness  of 
life. 


THE  WATEE  AND  THE  BLOOD. 

Good  Friday, 

"  This  is  He  that  came  by  water  and  blood,  even  Jesus  Christ;  not 
by  water  only,  but  by  water  and  blood. — /.  St.  John  v.  6. 

By  the  form  of  tlie  expression,  "  not  by  water  only," — 
it  is  implied  that  there  are  two  beliefs  as  to  the  object 
of  Jesus  Christ's  coming  into  the  world, — one  of  them 
going  beyond  the  other,  and  taking  in  something  that 
the  other  leaves  out.  St.  John  lived  and  wrote  close  to 
the  very  heart  of  his  Master.  He  rarely  touches  any- 
thing that  is  not  essential  to  the  substance  of  the  Gospel, 
and  he  dwells  most  on  what  most  distinguishes  it  from 
other  systems  of  religion. 

In  a  few  simple  sentences  this  marvellously  illumin- 
ated mind  has  just  thrown  out  some  most  profound 
and  comprehensive  statements.  "  Whosoever  believeth 
that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  is  born  of  God."  "  Wliosoever 
is  born  of  God  overcometh  the  world."  "  By  this  we 
know  that  we  are  the  children  of  God,  when  we  love  God 
and  keep  His  commandments."  "  This  is  the  victory 
that  overcometh  the  world,  even  our  faith."  Then  he 
goes  on  from  this  general  doctrine  to  a  more  particular 
definition  of  it.  It  is  evidently  in  his  mind  that  some 
readers  of  what  he  is  writing  will  say : — "  But  what  is 
this  ^  faith '  ?  Faith  in  what  ?  If  it  is  a  force  so  mighty 
that  it  overcomes  the  world,  it  must  have  in  it  the  divine 


266  THE   WATER   AND   THE   BLOOD. 

energy  of  Him  who  gives  it.  Who  is  He,  and  what  is 
the  mysterious  power  of  His  coming  which  makes  Him 
the  Giver  of  eternal  life  to  those  that  believe,  in  all  lands 
and  ages  of  the  world  ?  " 

He  answers  thus : — "  It  is  He  that  came  by  water  and 
blood;  not  by  water  only,  but  by  water  and  blood." 
There  were  probably  those  then,  there  are  certainly  those 
now,  who  would  have  no  difficulty  in  accepting  the  main 
facts  of  Christ's  birth  and  biography,  would  admit  Him 
to  be  a  memorable  teacher,  a  reformer  of  society,  a  leader 
among  moralists  and  philanthropists ;  but  tliey  would 
allow  nothing  further  in  His  claims,  as  the  Head  of  the 
Church  or  the  Saviour  of  mankind.  They  would  prob- 
ably declare  that  nothing  further  was  needed  to  make 
men  all  that  they  ought  to  be. 

So,  even  among  those  who  are  disposed  to  call  them- 
selves Christians,  we  meet  these  two  classes ;  and  what 
they  differ  about  is  just  that  august  event  at  Calvary 
which  on  this  day  millions  of  men  are  remembering. 

As  to  the  transaction  itself,  so  much  as  this  is  almost 
universally  allowed, — that  at  a  certain  date  in  history, 
Tiberias  being  emperor  at  Bome,  a  man  called  Jesus,  of 
Kazareth,  of  pure  life,  having  the  appearance  of  a 
prophet,  arraigning  and  rebuking  fervently  the  prevail- 
ing life  of  society  around  Him,  and  claiming  a  mysterious 
connection  with  the  One  God,  after  a  public  career  was 
crucified  in  the  obscure  province  of  Judea,  near  the  city 
of  Jerusalem,  by  the  combined  action  of  the  imperial 
and  ecclesiastical  authorities,  assisted  by  a  traitor  among 
His  own  followers.  Along  with  this  fact,  so  far  away 
from  us  in  time  and  place,  is  commonly  admitted 
another,  which  rises  at  once  into  solitary  majesty,  and 
becomes  a  matter  of  unspeakable  personal  concern.  It 
is  that,  in  some  way,  following  upon  the  crucifixion,  and 


THE   WATER   AND   THE   BLOOD.  267 

springing  from  that  spot,  a  steadily  advancing  wave  of 
spiritual,  moral,  and  intellectual  light  went  out,  and  has 
been  ever  since  spreading  over  the  globe.  The  feelings* 
and  convictions,  the  institutions,  the  principles  of  per- 
sonal action  and  the  spirit  of  society, — what  we  call  the 
character  of  mankind, — have  been  changed  and  formed 
anew  from  that  hour.  Mark  this,  too,  especially, — this 
change  has  been  brought  in  the  name  of  that  Person.  It 
has  not  been  a  revolution  of  abstruse  opinions  or  imper- 
sonal ideas,  like  the  progress  of  philosophy  among  the 
Greeks,  or  the  breaking  up  of  mediaeval  stagnation  at  the 
crusades,  or  the  transformation  of  European  religion 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  or  the  political  theories  of  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth; — it  has  always  and  every- 
where gone  on  by  a  personal  appeal,  a  personal  loyalty, 
a  personal  enthusiasm, — there  is  a  better  word  yet, — a 
personal  faith  towards  that  crucified  Man,  Christ  Jesus. 
There  is  no  such  name  among  men.  It  has  made  the 
nations  that  have  rceived  it  strong.  The  governing  forces 
of  the  world  have  not  been  superior  to  it ;  almost  the 
whole  line  of  commanding  men,  since  the  Caesars,  have 
acknowledged  Him  to  be  grqater  than  themselves, — hav- 
ing a  Lordship  different  in  kind,  and  loftier  in  rank. 

So  much  is  almost  universally  granted.  But,  around 
the  cross  where  this  Personage  died,  there  stood  four 
groups  or  classes  of  men,  representing  very  various 
opinions  of  His  actual  title  to  honor.  There  were  first 
the  people  whom  the  Prayer  Book,  in  the  service  of 
this  Good  Friday,  teaches  us  so  tenderly  to  pray  for ; 
as  the  Saviour  himself  while  on  the  cross,  murdered  by 
their  malignity,  taught  His  whole  Church  Catholic  to 
pray  for  them, — the  Jews.  They  treated  His  suffering 
as  a  proper  penalty  for  a  disturber  of  the  peace  who 
had  promised  to  emancipate  them  from  foreign  masters, 


268  THE   WATER   AND   THE   BLOOD. 

but  had  provoked  the  aristocracy,  and  failed.  A 
second  class,  Romans  and  other  strangers,  looked  on 
with  indifference,  sneering,  with  Pilate's  sarcasm,  at  a 
fickle  rabble  so  excitable  as  to  pour  out  in  a  2:)rocession 
with  palms  and  hosannas  after  a  fiinatic,  who  five  days 
after  takes  His  turn  as  a  victim  of  their  caprice.  Thirdly, 
friends  in  perplexity,  amazed  women,  their  hearts  torn 
with  many  kinds  of  pain,  watched  from  a  distance  the 
dear  form  where  their  gratitude  and  affection  were 
sacredly  enshrined. 

But,  scattered  among  all  these,  few  in  number,  and 
yet  the  vanguard  of  a  mighty  army,  unrecognized  build- 
ers of  a  kingdom  that  was  to  rise  from  that  spot  and 
conquer  and  outlive  every  empire  under  the  sun,  there 
were  certain  men  on  whose  souls  the  truth  had  taken 
hold.  They  knew  very  soon  why  their  Master  died, 
and  what  it  is  to  believe  in  the  cross.  Afterwards, 
instructed  by  a  risen  Redeemer  for  forty  days,  they  laid 
the  foundations,  they  drew  the  outlines,  they  set  in  order 
the  worship,  and  they  spoke  the  creed  of  the  Church, — 
the  Eternal  House  which  should  gather  and  shelter  the 
family  of  Christ.  "When  they  are  inquired  of,  what  this 
dying  on  the  cross  signifies,  they  answer,  "  This  death  was 
not  only  the  last  crowning  act  of  that  most  merciful  and 
life-giving  life  which  began  at  Bethlehem  ;  it  was  more 
than  that;  it  was  the  opening  of  the  door  into  life  eternal 
for  men  who  had  broken  from  their  Father  and  were 
spiritually  dead ;  it  was  a  perfect  offering  of  Love,  obe- 
dient to  Law,  for  the  sins  of  all  mankind ;  it  was  a  sacri- 
fice of  atonement,  of  such  ineffable  and  Divine  power 
that  it  melts  away  the  wall  of  separation  which  the 
transgressions  of  the  race  had  built  up,  and  opens  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  to  all  believers.  There  was  disobe- 
dience everywhere.     Four  thousand  years  of  Jewish  and 


THE   WATER  AND  THE  BLOOD.  269 

Gentile  self-rigliteousness  had  proved  that  there  is  no 
self-recovering  power  in  . humanity  alone.  That  power 
must  be  lodged  in  a  Person  who  has  in  Him  both  of  the 
estranged  natures  that  are  to  be  reconciled  to  each 
other ; — it  must  be  a  mediation  between  an  everlasting 
law  of  purity  and  right,  which  every  man  is  concerned 
in  having  kept  honorable  and  inviolate,  and  the  weak  but 
repenting  soul,  which  has  violated  its  commandment; — 
it  must  be  a  suffering  so  free  and  so  glorious  in  its  charity 
that  it  shall  be  a  bond  of  union  between  believers, 
mightier  than  the  wall  of  partition  which  it  broke  down. 
Be3^ond  all  the  blessings  of  the  Saviour's  life  among 
men  was  the  mediatorial  mercy  and  reconciliation  of 
His  death.  So  runs  the  teaching  and  testimony  of  the 
Gospel,  from  first  to  last. 

Each  of  the  New  Testament  writers  clothes  this 
truth  in  his  own  characteristic  dress.  St.  John  presents 
it,  with  peculiar  beauty,  under  the  original  image  of  the 
text.  Taking  two  of  the  most  familiar  substances  of 
the  material  world, — water  and  blood, — he  turns  them 
into  a  figure  of  the  great  central  doctrine  of  the  Gospel 
and  the  Church. 

First  the  "  water."  Water  is  the  emblem  of  spiritual 
purification,  because  it  is  the  common  instrument  of  out- 
ward washing.  Our  Lord  himself,  who  was  able  to  set 
all  symbols  and  all  forms  aside  if  He  chose,  went  down 
into  the  water,  at  the  beginning  of  His  life's  work,  in 
order,  we  are  told,  that  He  might  fulfil  all  righteousness. 
He  "  came  by  water."  There  must  have  been  weighty 
reasons  for  this  water-ceremony,  so  solemnly  observed, 
or  He  never  could  have  made  place  for  it  among  His 
crowded  days  of  teaching,  healing,  and  comforting  His 
countrymen.  He  takes  peculiar  pains  to  say  that  every 
Christian  life  must  begin  in  the  same  way.     "  Except  a 


270  THE   WATER   AND   THE   BLOOD. 

man  be  born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit," — an  outward 
and  an  inward  washing, — "  he  cannot  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  God."  Nothing  plainer  is  written.  "  Go  teach 
the  nations  of  the  earth  and  baptize  them,"  with  water, 
was  His  last  commission,  when  His  work  was  done. 
"  Repent,  believe,  and  be  baptized,"  with  water,  "  every- 
one of  you,"  was  the  preaching  that  converted  the  world 
and  planted  the  Church.  So  it  is  that  each  individual 
Christian  life,  as  well  as  the  whole  body  of  Christ,  after 
Him,  came  "  bv  water." 

Why  is  this  ?  Because  one  great  part  of  our  Saviour's 
work  is  to  purify  men's  lives.  Do  they  not  need  puri- 
fying ?  The  stains  are  everywhere.  In  this  congrega- 
tion there  is  not  one  clean  conscience.  We  can  all  see 
the  stains  when  we  look  sharply  into  ourselves,  or  into 
society.  Manners  are  not  clean  ;  business  is  not  clean  ; 
politics  are  not  clean ;  our  literature  and  our  tongues  are 
not  clean.  In  their  business  dealings  few  men  dare  to 
say  that  they  are  perfectly  clean-handed ;  and  in  their 
solitude,  fewer  still  will  claim  that  there  is  nothing  un- 
clean in  their  imaginations.  The  Church  herself  has  not 
yet  been  presented  to  the  Bridegroom  a  Bride  without 
spot.  And  therefore,  in  taking  upon  Him  all  the 
plagues  and  sorrows  of  His  human  brethren,  Christ  came 
into  such  close  and  vital  sympathy  with  them  that  He 
desired  to  go  through  all  the  outer  as  well  as  inner 
forms  of  their  experience.  Human  nature  was  in  Him, 
too ;  it  was  tempted  in  Him ;  evil  came  all  round  it  and 
beset  it ; — and  therefore  He  treated  Himself  as  all  these 
human  transgressors  are  treated.  He  Avas  baptized  with 
their  baptism,  and  they  with  His.  The  world  was  to 
smite  and  sneer  at  Him,  and  spit  upon  Him,  in  spite  of 
His  purity:  in  being  holy  for  them  He  will  also  be 
washed  with  them.     He  "  came  by  water." 


THE   WATER   AND   THE  BLOOD.  271 

Accordingly,  one  great  part  of  the  power  of  Christ 
among  men,  through  the  Gospel  and  the  Church,  is  the 
cleansing  away  of  moral  corruptions.  Whenever  a  pro- 
fessed Christianity,  or  nominal  Church,  has  not  gone 
steadily  and  effectually  to  reforming  men's  conduct  and 
institutions,  by  righteous  education  and  a  higher  spirit, 
there  has  been  some  falsehood  at  the  heart,  some 
hypocrisy  under  the  ecclesiastical  cloak.  "  He  that  hath 
this  hope  in  him  purifieth  himself."  Stains  on  the  lips, 
the  hands,  the  habits ;  stains  on  social  courtesies,  domes- 
tic dispositions,  every  room  of  the  house,  and  even  on 
Church  observances ;  woi-st  of  all,  stains  on  the  sacred 
temple  walls  of  the  soul  itself; — these  all  have  to  be 
washed  away,  first  by  one  true  repentance  and  regen- 
eration, havijig  water  for  their  sacramental  sign,  and 
then,  afterwards,  by  the  repeated  washings  of  Christ's 
truth  and  spirit,  applied  faithfully  to  all  the  departments 
of  our  action.  Christ  came  to  cleanse  Ilis  followers  from 
all  unrighteousness.     He  "  came  by  water." 

But  now  shall  we  not  only  say,  "  This  is  true,"  but 
shall  we  go  on  to  say, "  This  is  all  that  our  Saviour  gives 
us,  and  this  is  the  whole  of  His  Gospel : — Christianity  is 
a  system  of  moral  education  and  religious  improvement; 
nothing  more  "  ? 

Is  obedience  to  a  perfect  Law,  and  such  obedience 
as  we  at  best  can  give,  the  only  salvation  ?  If  it  is,  I, 
for  one,  must  wonder  how  it  is  going  with  me ;  and  I 
shall  have  to  doubt  whether  your  message  to  me  can  be 
called  a  gospel  of  glad  tidings  at  all.  I  confess  to  you, 
preacher  of  this  Law,  that  while  I  honor  it  as  a  law, 
"  holy,  just,"  beneficent,  and  know  that  it  comes  from 
God,  I  fail  in  keeping  it:  it  is  not  only  exceeding 
broad,  as  David  found  it,  but  exceeding  deep  and  exceed- 
ing difficult.     I  fail  in  keeping  it,  have  failed  all  along 


272  THE   WATER   AND   THE   BLOOD. 

from  the  first,  and  shall  fail  to  the  end ;  for  the  more  I 
keep  it  the  more  I  see  its  breadth  and  depth,  the  farther 
up  its  splendid  standard  flies,  and  the  more  shamelul 
seem  mj  sins.  You  answer,  "  Yes,  you  fail,  no  doubt, 
very  often ;  but  you  must  keep  trying :  try  again,  and 
then  try  again.  You  are  defiled,  but  wash  yourself. 
Here  are  Christian  truths  and  Christian  precepts  and  the 
Christian  spirit :  take  them  and  cleanse  yourself  with 
them.  What  you  want  is  more  of  the  water.  Christ 
came  by  water.  It  is  all  He  brings.  More  water, — 
more  water  to  make  you  clean  !  " 

Systems  of  religion  have  made  that  answer.  But,  my 
friends,  there  comes  a  time  in  the  experience  of  earnest 
people's  minds  when  they  feel  that  this  is  no  answer  for 
them.  They  know,  by  a  secret  conviction,  and  no  ration- 
alizing and  no  philosophizing  can  drive  it  out  of  them, 
that  they  need  more  than  this ;  that  lor  them  to  be  saved 
into  the  everlasting  life,  and  into  the  presence  and  com- 
munion of  God,  by  a  perfect  mortal  righteousness  and  a 
blameless  obedience  is  a  fantasy  so  utterly  out  of  all 
fact  and  reason  both,  that  to  offer  it  to  them  as  a  ground 
of  salvation  is  a  mockery.  They  believe  that  somewhere 
there  must  be  another  half  to  match  this  fragmentary 
piece  of  a  mutilated  revelation,  and  they  are  not  mistaken. 
"  This  is  He  that  came  by  water  and  blood  ;  not  hy  water 
onlyy  but  by  water  and  blood."  The  daily  sacrifice  of 
four  thousand  preparatory  years  had  presignified  it  to  a 
waiting  world.  As  the  passion-flower  sprang  out  of  the 
common  earth,  and  held  up  its  bright  blossom  and  nat- 
ural imago  of  the  tree  at  Calvary,  ages  before  the  real 
cross  was  planted  in  its  soil,  so  the  passion-promise  of 
prophecy  bloomed  in  the  expectant  faith  of  the  race  at 
the  very  gates  of  Eden.  The  serpent  had  polluted 
Paradise ;  but  after  all,  the  woman's  seed  should  bruise  the 


THE   WATER   AND   THE   BLOOD.  273 

serpent's  head.  Man  knew  from  the  beginning  that  he 
must  have  a  Saviour  to  look  to,  or  he  was  gone ;  liu- 
manity  itself  would  die.  He  knows  it  now  just  as  well. 
Something  tells  jou  that  though  you  had  an  ever  spring- 
ing font  at  your  side,  a  well  of  water,  a  river,  a  Jordan, 
an  ocean,  in  which  you  should  be  baptized  every  day  of 
your  life,  it  would  not  wash  out  one  of  these  deep-struck 
spots  in  your  conscience  and  your  heart.  Somew^here 
among  the  sons  of  men  there  must  be  One  Perfect 
Obedience,  One  Sufficient  Sacrifice,  needing  not,  like 
those  shadowy  sacrifices  which  prepared  the  way,  to  be 
often  offered,  but  "  once  oifered." 

Then  a  living  and  loving  faith  in  Him  will  work  out 
the  true  and  healing  life  in  every  believing  lieart. 
"  There  is  a  fountain  opened  for  sin,  and  for  unclean- 
ness  ";  but  it  is  not  a  water  fountain.  This  day  we  ap- 
proach it.  The  more  earnest  our  soul's  life  grows  within 
us,  the  more  the  conscience,  while  struggling  bravely 
with  all  its  might  for  the  keeping  of  the  commandments, 
cries  out  for  this  peace.  The  past,  the  bad,  mean,  selfish, 
sinful,  guilty  life  of  days  gone  by,  with  all  its  accu- 
mulated corruption,  we  cannot  remember  it  without 
remorse ;  we  cannot  look  back  into  it  without  anguish. 
Only  he  who  doeth  the  deeds  of  the  Law — so  it  reads — 
will  live  by  them.  Who  of  us  has  done  them  ?  Where 
are  we  then,  my  brethren,  if  there  is  "water  only," 
example  and  precept  only,  commandments  only,  sorrow 
upon  sorrow  when  they  are  broken,  and  the  breaking 
repeated  still  ?  It  certainly  looks  very  much  like  sorrow 
without  end. 

From  our  Lord's  first  coming  in  the  flesh  He  knew 
that  He  came  not  by  water  only,  but  by  water  and 
blood.  Among  the  most  remarkable  of  Overbeck's 
striking  series  of  pictures  illustrating  the  life  of  Jesus, 

18 


274:  THE   WATER   AND   THE   BLOOD. 

there  is  one  tliat  represents  Him  as  a  Child  in  the  car- 
penter's shop.  Like  other  children,  He  has  been  playing 
with  the  tools,  and  has  taken  np  the  saw.  A  look  of 
solemnity  passes  over  His  radiant  face ;  and  by  the 
shadow  that  falls  on  the  floor  underneath  yon  see  that 
the  block  of  wood  He  is  sawing  out  is  taking  the  shape 
of  a  cross.  Joseph  looks  on  in  a  kind  of  perplexed 
reverence,  and  the  Yirgin-mother  by  his  side  with  a  sad 
admiration,  as  if  Simeon's  prediction  were  already  begin- 
ning to  have  its  acccomplishment,  and  the  sword  were 
piercing  her  own  soul  also.  This  is  not  imagination  ;  it 
is  rather  interpretation.  The* artist  is  only  an  expositor 
of  the  evangelist.  ''  This  is  He  that  came  by  water  and 
blood."  From  the  outset  of  His  personal  ministry, — as  it 
had  been  from  the  foundation  of  the  world, — the  Saviour 
was  pointing  to  the  sacrifice, — journeying  always  towards 
Calvary.  Other  prophets  and  reformers  had  come  "by 
water,"  preaching  purification  for  the  future.  He  alone 
came  "by  blood,"  giving,  in  Himself,  atonement  for 
past  and  future  both.  The  august  sorrowfulness  of  the 
end  rested  evidently  on  His  spirit.  As  fast  as  they  were 
able  to  bear  it  He  unfolded  to  His  disciples  this  real 
object  of  His  being  born.  He  spoke  to  them  of  His  flesh 
and  blood,  to  be  given  for  the  life  of  the  world.  He 
explained,  very  early,  to  a  Jewish  rabbi,  the  symbol  in 
Jewish  history,  the  serpent  lifted  up  in  the  wilderness, 
an  emblem  of  the  cross  to  which  men  have  to  look  in 
faith  to  be  healed.  He  accepted,  at  His  baptism  in  the 
Jordan,  the  Baptist's  ascription  to  Him  as  the  sacrificial 
Lamb  of  God,  taking  away  the  sins  of  the  world.  On 
the  mount  of  Transfiguration  He  announced  more  openly 
"the  decease  that  He  should  accomplish  at  Jerusalem." 
To  quote  the  testimony  of  each  of  the  apostles  would 
be  to  copy  a  principal  part  of  their  several  sermons  and 


THE   WATER    AND   THE   BLOOD.  275 

epistles.  A  very  few  concise  phrases  will  call  up  more 
pages  to  your  memory,  and  sliow  liow  the  whole  strain 
of  their  doctrine  proceeds :  "  Having  made  peace  by  the 
blood  of  His  cross,  by  Him  to  reconcile  all  things  to 
Himself" ;  "  Ye  were  redeemed  by  the  precious  blood 
of  Christ "  ;  "  While  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for 
ns";  "We  which  were  far  off,  are  made  nigh  by  the 
blood  of  Christ "  ;  "  Justified  freely  by  His  grace,  through 
the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus,  whom  God  hath 
set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation,  through  faith  in  His  blood 
for  the  remission  of  sins  that  are  past."  We  read  what 
is  written  to  the  Hebrews:  "Without  the  shedding  of 
blood  there  is  no  remission  of  sins.  Having  therefore 
boldness  to  enter  by  the  blood  of  Jesus, — let  us  draw 
near, — with  full  assurance  of  faith."  We  hear  the  voices 
of  the  Apocalypse :  "  Unto  Him  that  loved  us  and 
washed  us  from  our  sins  in  His  own  blood, — to  Him  be 
glory  and  dominion."  We  hear  the  mighty  song  of 
heaven,  like  the  sound  of  many  waters,  but  singing  of  a 
purification  that  no  oceans  of  water  could  ever  accom- 
plish :  "  Thou  art  worthy,  for  Thou  wast  slain,  and  hast 
redeemed  us  to  God  by  Thy  blood  out  of  every  kindred 
and  tongue."  Even  if  all  other  tongues  were  still,  in 
heaven  or  in  earth,  we  have  the  truth  from  Him  who 
speaks  alone  as  men  never  speak :  "  This  cup  is  the 
New  Testament  in  My  blood,  which  is  shed  for  you. 
He  that  eateth  My  flesh  and  drinketh  My  blood, 
dwelleth  in  Me,  and  I  in  him ;  and  I  give  unto  him 
everlasting  life." 

Can  anybody  think  it  strange,  after  we  have  repeated 
afiirmations  of  Holy  Scripture  like  these,  that  we  repeat, 
also,  every  year,  with  reverent  adoration,  the  commemo- 
ration of  this  day  ?  The  day  of  the  sacrifice  on  the  cross  ? 
I  can  imagine,  I  think,  the  total  disbelief,  of  pride  or 


276  THE   WATER   AND   THE   BLOOD. 

delusion,  that  sliuts  the  Bible  up,  with  a  sweeping  denial, 
or  drops  it  in  despair.  It  is  more  difficult  to  conceive 
how  any  clear  mind  can  hold  on  upon  it,  to  call  it  a  mes- 
sage of  moral  education,  with  no  atonement : — the  water 
without  the  blood. 

We  stand  once  more  to-day  at  the  foot  of  the  cross. 
I  am  half-ashamed  to  be  handling  cavils  and  objections, 
before  this  mystic  miracle  of  love,  which  fills  a  universe 
with  comfort  and  light.  You  can  read,  if  you  please, 
the  long  line  of  argument,  from  Justin  Martyr  and 
Augustine  to  the  last  modern  speculation,  on  this  vast 
wonder  of  time,  into  which,  we  are  told,  angels  look 
with  humility.  But  how  plain  the  whole  truth  that  we 
need  is  found  to  be  !  We  are  but  children.  Your  soul, 
mine,  every  soul  in  the  world,  under  its  temptation,  its 
infirmity,  its  bad  desires ,  was  sinking  into  death.  We 
had  our  unsuccessful  projects  of  relief,  failing  one  by 
one.  Infinite  love  reaches  out  the  cross  to  save  us. 
God  says  to  us  in  His  Son,  "  Take  hold  of  this :  believe 
on  this,  and  live  forever, — in  thankful  service  to  your 
Lord."  O  thou  of  little  faith,  wherefore  didst  thou 
doubt  ?"  "  The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  cleanseth  us  from 
all  sin": — not  "water  only,  but  the  water  and  the 
blood." 

The  whole  Gospel  of  our  salvation  gathers  itself  into 
a  personal  blessing. 

Whatever  my  personal  fortunes,  for  the  present,  may 
happen  to  be,  I  know  that  I  am  in  the  midst  of  a  world 
full  of  suffering  and  failure ; — things  most  valued  are 
passing  away,  and  the  best-beloved  friends  are  dying 
and  carried  out  to  be  buried.  Here  is  the  body  ; — not  a 
fibre  of  the  flesh  but  is  liable  and  sensitive  to  pain.  One 
little  nerve  pierced  by  a  needle  fills  days  and  years  with 
distress.     A  careless  shot  alters  the  whole  course  of  a 


THE   WATER   AND   THE   BLOOD.  277 

young  man  just  furnished  for  a  successful  career,  blinds 
him,  cripples  him ;  or  a  crash  on  a  railway  crushes  out 
fifty  lives  at  once,  and  leaves  five  hundred  precious 
interests,  or  attachments  hanging  upon  them,  broken  up 
and  mourning.  There  is  not  a  faculty  of  the  mind  but 
lias  its  frightful  capacity  of  torture.  Disorder,  short- 
coming, wrong-doing,  desertion,  .hatred,  loneliness,  or- 
phanage, shame,  despair :  what  names  these  are !  And 
what  realities  are  under  them !  The  great  w^orld's  his- 
tory is  tragical, — a  history  of  war  and  crime.  Now,  in 
the  midst  of  this  sorrow-struck  humanity,  stands  a  soul, 
seeing  it  all  and  feeling  it.  Perhaps  it  is  yours.  It  is 
told  that  above  it  all  there  is  a  God,  and  partly  believes 
it.  But  is  He  only  above,  looking  down  upon  it  ?  Does 
that  God  feel  for  this  wretchedness  ?  Is  there  a  heart 
in  heaven  ?  Does  the  Everlasting  King  love  %is^  and 
come  close  to  us  ?  You  read  the  epistle  for  this  day. 
You  look  on  the  face  of  Him  despised  and  rejected.  His 
countenance  marred  more  than  any  of  the  sons  of  men. 
Behold  the  Man!  You  know  that  He  is  more  than 
man, — God's  only  Son.  He  prays,  "  Father,  forgive 
them."  He  dies.  You  know,  now,  whether  there  is  a 
heart  in  heaven  ;  whether  your  God  has  entered  into 
your  humanity.  "Herein  is  love!"  We  have  a  suf- 
fering and  a  sympathizing  Lord. 

Sorrow  is  always  venerable ;  but  the  degree  of  it  is 
proportioned  to  the  sensibility.  Only  a  nature  infinitely 
refined,  infinitely  delicate,  and  infinitely  pure,  with  an 
infinite  cajpacity  for  sorrow,  could  sufier  as  the  Saviour 
siifiered.  No  other  atonement  could  be  complete.  And 
herein  was  the  love. 

But  there  is  a  power  and  a  glory  of  love  beyond  even 
this.  Taking  one  m'ore  look  around  this  great  world's 
chamber  of  sickness  and  groaning,  you  discover  faint 


278  THE   WATER   AND   THE   BLOOD. 

occasional  gleams  of  a  brighter  law  breaking  in.  There  is 
not  only  fellow-suffering,  and  not  only  suffering  freely 
borne  for  others'  lieljp^  but.  here  and  there  some  nobler 
spirits,  the  noblest  of  all,  are  gloriously  taking  up  and 
bearing  crosses  in  one  another's  stead,  that  the  guilty 
may  be  spared,  that  the  lost  may  not  perish,  that  the 
worst  may  be  saved.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  voluntary 
suffering  to  save  the  hateful  and  the  hating,  the  spiteful, 
the  evil,  the  foul.  Whence^  in  all  the  universe,  from 
what  one  spot  of  singular  and  central  glory,  do  these 
beams  of  heavenly  charity  arise?  From  that  hill  of 
sacrifice, — and  only  there, — where  we  gather  our 
remembrances  and  assemble  our  affections  and  offer 
our  praises  this  day.  The  revilers  spoke  a  deeper 
truth  than  they  knew :  "  He  saved  others :  Himself 
He  could  not  save."  He  whom  the  faithful  Abra- 
ham, of  the  morning  lesson,  dimly  prefigured,  sadly 
building  his  altar  and  saying,  "  God  will  provide 
Himself  a  lamb,"  spared  not  His  Son.  Herein  is  the 
love  that  is  Divine, — the  love  of  the  Son  of  God,  on 
the  cross! 

We  come,  then,  finally,  to  the  great  confession, — be- 
ginning in  humiliation  and  ending  in  triumph, — the 
confession  of  the  sinful,  redeemed  soul.  I  am  sure  it  is 
mine.  May  it  not  be  made,  must  it  not  be, — by  every 
soul  here  ?  I  am  weak ;  I  am  unclean  ;  I  am  broken  in 
my  will ;  I  am  evil,  proud,  selfish,  passionate  at  my  heart ; 
I  am  stained  all  over  with  sin ; — and  I  am  fighting 
against  adversaries  mightier  than  I,  where  all  that  trust 
themselves  go  down.  Give  me  the  water  to  cleanse.. 
But,  O  Son  of  God,  keep  not  from  me  the  precious  blood, 
to  sprinkle,  to  pardon,  to  redeem.  I  was  far  off;  make 
me  nigh  by  that!  I  was  dying;  let  me  live  by 
that! 


THE   WATER    A^D   THE   BLOOD.  279 

"  I  saw  again.     Behold  heaven's  open  door. 

Behold  a  throne!    The  seraphim  stood  o'er  it. 
The  white-robed  elders  fell  upon  the  floor, 
And  flung  their  crowns  before  it. 

**  I  saw  a  wondrous  book.     An  angel  strong 

To  heaven  and  earth  proclaimed  his  loud  appeals. 
But  a  hush  passd  across  the  seraph's  song, 
For  none  might  loose  the  seals. 

"  And  straightway  up  above, 

Stood  in  the  midst  a  wondrous  Lamb,  snow-white, 
As  it  were  slain  with  the  deep  wounds  of  love, 
Eternal,  infinite. 

"  Then  rose  the  song  no  ear  had  heard  before; 

Then  from  the  white-robed  host  an  anthem  woke; 
And  fast  as  spring- tide  on  the  sounding  shore 
The  hallelujahs  broke  T' 


THE  POWER  OF  THE  RESUERECTIOK 

Easter  Day. 

"  To  this  end  Christ  both  died,  and  rose,  and  revived  (or  lived 
again),  that  He  might  be  Lord  both  of  the  dead  and  hving." — 
Romans  xiv.  9. 

In  the  facts  of  our  Lord's  personal  history  there  is  a 
special  satisfaction  provided  by  each  great  event  for 
some  special  want  that  is  common  to  men.  From  the 
need  of  reconciliation  with  a  broken  law  of  right  and 
with  Him  whose  perfect  will  that  law  is,  met  by  the 
Sacrifice,  we  pass  this  morning  to  our  need  of  reconcili- 
ation with  our  own  future.  Even  the  firmest  believer^ 
as  he  looks  along  the  uncertain  years  before  him,  and 
beyond  them  all,  sees  that  much  must  be  lost.  Is  he  to 
receive  anything  in  its  place?  Three  kinds  of  separa- 
tion look  particularly  forbidding : — the  separation  from 
human  companionship,  ftimily  and  friends ;  the  separation 
from  the  present  outward  scene,  as  a  familiar  sphere  of 
activity  ;  and  the  separation  of  the  soul  from  the  body. 
It  is  around-  these  three  portentous  mysteries  that  the 
sorrow  and  anxiety  gather,  which  Christ's  rising  from 
the  dead  scatters.  He  meets  them,  as  on  this  day,  by  the 
demonstration  of  His  living  and  eternal  Headship  over 
the  spiritual  creation.  All  souls  alive  in  Him  not  only 
live  forever,  but  they  are  in  Him  forever  one.  "  To  this 
end  He  both  died,  and  rose,  that  He  might  be  Lord  both 


THE   POWEK   OF   THE   EESUEKECTION.  281 

cf  the  dead  and  living."  By  virtue  of  His  inextinguish- 
able Divinity  we  shall  know  our  Christian  friends  again.  K 
Dying,  the  decays  of  disease,  the  dust  of  dissolution,  will 
not  permanently  overmaster  the  vitality  which  has  its 
springs  in  Ilim.  The  earth  swings,  half  in  light  and 
half  in  shadow,  around  the  central  sun.  But  to  the 
Household  of  Faith,  such  alternations  are  transient : — 
the  part  now  shaded  and  the  part  shining  in  joy  will  be 
contrasted  hemispheres  no  more,  but  will  move  into  a 
boundless  noon,  one  bright  and  perfect  globe,  with  no 
need  of  sun  or  stars.  This  is  the  assurance,  the  conso- 
lation, of  Easter  Day. 

There  are,  however,  two  senses  in  which  man  is  said 
to  be  immortal.  Natural  immortality  is  simply  the 
lengthening  out  of  bare  existence,  irrespective  of  those 
loftier  and  nobler  qualities  which  belong  to  what  the 
Christian  calls  life.  If  we  take  the  idea  of  the  best 
of  the  old  Greek  thinkers,  making  humanity  threefold, 
— body,  soul,  and  spirit, — we  should  say  that  beyond 
the  body,  which  alone  dies,  there  is  a  second  element,  an 
"  animal  soul,"  which  escapes  destruction  and  survives. 
What  kind  of  existence  that  w^ould  be,  with  nothing 
added  to  it,  animal  immortality,  we  have  not  the  faintest; 
conception.  Nature  casts  not  a  beam  of  illumination'; 
there;  and  Bevelation  itself  is  dumb. 

It  is  striking, — a  fact  in  which  it  is  impossible  for  men 
who  follow  at  all  the  courses  of  modern  thought,  and 
who  watch  the  bearing  of  science  on  the  great  problems 
of  the  soul  and  the  dogmas  of  the  Faith,  not  to  be  in- 
terested,— that  the  most  prominent  scientiiic  assailant 
of  the  Bible  distinctly  declares  his  belief  in  a  future 
life.  While  holding  that  the  human  race  has  been  grad- 
ually/c>rm^fZ  upward^  or  developed  fi-oni  the  lowest  ani- 
mal type,  instead  of  having  been  originally  set  by  the 


282  THE   POWER    OF   THE   KESUEEECTION. 

Maker  at  the  head  of  creation,  he  yet  admits  that  some- 
where on  that  line  of  transmutations,  this  marvellous 
and  majestic  attribute  of  immortality,  or  imperishable- 
ness,  has  been  acquired.  How  far  this  sort  of  "  life  to 
come  "  differs  from  the  ancient  heathen  idea,  has  not  yet 
been  made  to  appear. 

What  we  have  to  notice  is  that, — being  sublimely  in- 
different to  all  the  speculative  or  naturalistic  theories, — 
the  New  Testament  starts  from  an  entirely  different 
point,  leaves  the  conjectures  of  philosophy  wholly  aside, 
but  offers  to  our  faith  what  harmonizes  indeed  with  all 
true  philosophy,  and  what  no  measure  of  knowledge  can 
ever  possibly  deny  or  ever  touch, — the  doctrine  of  eternal 
life  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

The  matter  stands  there  in  a  sublime  simplicity. 
They  that  live  the  spiritual  life  have  it  from  the  Son  of 
God,  and  by  believing  in  Plim  : — He  rises  from  the  dead 
and  lives  forever ; — therefore  they  also  live  immortally. 
These  are  tho  short,  clear  steps  in  that  evangelic  argu- 
ment. But  no  line  of  reasoning  establishes  the  conclu- 
sion. 1^0  dialectical  demonstration  ever  attempted, — 
not  even  the  famous  one  of  Bishop  Butler, — is  without 
its  weak  spot.  We  are  dealing  not  with  the  parts  or 
conditions  of  a  problem,  but  with  a  living  fact  and  a 
personal  reality.  "  /  am  the  Ilesurrection  and  the  Life  : 
— whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  Me  shall  never  die  "  : 
— this  carries  us  beyond  the  region  of  premise  and  infer- 
ence. We  believe,  or  not ;  and  are  blessed,  or  wretched, 
accordingly ;  but  we  are  not  argued  into  the  conviction,  or 
out  of  it.  The  faith,  however,  in  its  certainty,  amounts 
to  sight  or  knowledge ;  and  hence  it  is  no  exaggeration 
when  all  Christendom,  moving  ever  towards  the  grave  in 
the  procession  of  its  generations,  declares  in  the  burial 
sentence,  "  /  know  that  my  Eedeemer  liveth." 


THE    POWER    OF   THE    RESUREECTION.  283 

It  is  remarkable,  too,  that  in  the  New  Testainent  the 
common  term  for  this  Christian  immortality  is  the  eter- 
nal or  everlasting  "Z^/d," — or  sometimes  simply  the 
Life  : — as  if  it  meant  to  say  that  there  is  really  no  other 
life  worth  living  bnt  this  one  of  purity  and  honor,  love 
and  prayer,  beginning  in  a  Christian  here,  becoming  af- 
terwards the  life  of  heaven :  so  surpassing,  whether  in 
this  world  or  the  next,  is  its  richness,  its  joy,  its  satisfac- 
tion, its  glory.  When  we  examine  and  weigh  them  care- 
fully. Scripture  statements  that  we  had  not  perhaps 
before  looked  at  in  the  same  light  come  to  confirm 
this  view.  Christ  himself .  says,  in  His  last  prayer  be- 
fore the  Supper,  that  it  is  noiv,  not  merely  that  it  will 
he  in  the  future, — it  is  now  eternal  life  to  know  the 
Father  and  the  Son  with  this  affectionate  knowledge. 
When  He  speaks  of  going  to  prepare  a  place  for  His 
followers,  it  is  that  this  personal  intercourse  may  con- 
tinue,— "  that  ye  may  be  with  Me,  where  I  am."  He 
says,  "  He  that  eatetli  My  flesh  and  drinketh  My  blood," 
— which  is  the  mystical  description  of  a  deep  and  inward 
union, — "hath  eternal  life."  Everywhere  He  teaches 
that  immortality  is  not  a  gift  conferred  upon  us  from 
without,  as  from  hand  to  hand,  but  that  it  grows  up  in 
the  soul,  as  the  sure  consequence  or  fruitage  of  obedience 
and  trust  toward  God.  St.  John  is  full  of  this  idea, — 
that  you  may  know  whether  you  will  live  forever  by 
knowing  whether  you  are  following  that  Master,  from 
the  love  of  Him.  St.  Paul  speaks  of  being  "  absent 
from  the  body  and  present  with  the  Lord,"  and  of  his 
desire  to  depart  and  be  with  Christ, — evidently  regarding 
a  Christian  death  as  a  merely  physical  incident,  an 
emancipation  from  the  flesh, — leaving  the  spirit  more  at 
liberty  to  be  in  direct  and  active  communion  with  its 
unseen  Friend.     This  is  his  magnificent  message  to  the 


284  THE   POWER   OF  THE   EESUEEECTION. 

Corintliians : — "  I^ot  for  that  we  would  be  unclothed,  but 
clothed  upon,  that  mortality  might  be  swallowed  up  of 
life." 

So  we  come  to  the  text.  It  is  the  culminating  of  a 
rapid  and  rising  stream  of  devout  thought,  where  the 
one  object  that  stands  supreme  is  the  risen  Redeemer. 
The  real  import  of  the  Easter  event  is  that  Jesus,  risen 
from  the  dead,  becomes  thereby  the  personal  centre  and 
giver  of  all  spiritual  life  to  His  Church,  and  is  a  Lord 
of  the  living  and  the  dead.     Observe  some  inferences. 

In  the  lirst  place,  this  Lordship  of  the  risen  Christ 
over  the  living  and  the  dead  provides  the  only  solid  and 
satisfactory  assurance  of  the  future  reunion  and  recog- 
nition of  Ilis  followers.  The  question  that  rises  oftener 
than  any  other  to  the  lips  of  the  bereaved  touches  this 
point  of  reunion.  "  Shall  I  see  him  again, — my  brother, 
my  child,  my  friend?  Will  the  hand  that  lies  there 
white  upon  the  breast  be  reached  out  to  me  when  we 
meet?  Will  the  eyes  of  my  mother,  whose  light  opened 
on  me  with  my  life,  welcome  my  coming?  Each  dear 
and  trusted  face, — by  some  celestial  sense  will  its  mys- 
terious meanings  and  attractions  be  felt  as  they  were 
here, 

**  *  Lovelier  in  heaven's  sweet  climate,  yet  the  same '  "? 

There  is  no  need  to  put  these  intense  longings  into  words. 
AVithout  saying  that  they  are  universal,  it  can  certainly  be 
said  that  they  are  common ;  and  they  are  generally 
eager  in  proportion  to  the  afFectionateness  of  the  sur- 
vivor's nature.  You  may  try  to  construct  a  heaven  cut 
clean  oiF  in  all  its  sympathies  and  attachments  and  recog- 
nitions from  this  world  we  are  in  now.  But  you  will 
almost  certainly  then  have  before  the  mind  a  heaven 
practically  destitute  of  any  sympathies  and  attachments 


THE    POWER    OF   THE   EESTJBRECTION.  285 

wliatever ;  too  vagnc  to  awaken  expectation,  too  unreal 
to  inspire  enthusiasm;  bleak,  cheerless,  and  quite  too 
feeble  in  its  attraction  to  meet  the  meaning  of  that 
grand  apostolic  expression, — "  the  jpowei's  of  the  world 
to  come." 

He  who  rose  and  lives  again  is  the  Lord  of  the  liv- 
ing and  the  dead.  They  are  not  two  families,  but  one, 
because  they  are  all  in  Him,  in  spite  of  the  transient 
curtain  that  hangs  between  the  departed  and  ourselves, — 
a  curtain  that  probably  has  its  only  substance  in  the  eyes 
of  our  flesh.  Tlie  resurrection  of  the  body  of  Jesus,  as 
the  Church  has  always  taught  by  the  stress  she  has  laid 
upon  it  in  the  Creed,  signifies  the  literal  reality  of  all 
that  is  promised  the  Christian  in  his  future  home, — the 
actual  identity  of  the  person  here  and  the  person  there, — 
the  actual  renewal  of  affections  and  their  interchange, — 
for  what  is  the  identity,  or  the  blessing  of  it,  if  the  heart 
has  got  to  begin  its  whole  history  afresh  ?  It  signifies  the 
actual  restoration,  too,  of  the  society,  the  acquaintance- 
ships, in  other  words,  the  common  life  and  common 
worship,  only  in  purer  and  more  exalted  forms,  of  those 
who  have  believed  together,  and  worshipped  the  same 
Saviour,  here. 

There  will  be  no  confusion  of  persons,  no  obliteration 
of  the  lines  that  mark  off  one  soul  from  another.  The 
individuality  of  the  disciple  is  not  absorbed  even  in  that 
of  his  Lord, — which  would  make  a  Pantheist's  heaven, — 
or  in  an  undistinguished  mass  of  strange  life, — which 
would  make  a  heaven  of  pagan  "  shades."  "We  shall  be 
just  as  distinct  persons,  with  all  personal  faculties,  affec- 
tions, sympathies,  substances,  yes,  and  appearances,  as  we 
are  now.  In  those  celestial  congregations  there  will,  no 
doubt,  be  something  to  be  recognized  b}-,  in  feature  or 
form,  inbred  on  earth,  and  indestructible  by  dissolution. 


286        THE  POWER  OF  THE  KESUKRECTION. 

Hence  tlie  need  of  a  glorified,  resurrection  body,  to  be 
set  free,  at  the  last  change, — following  the  a7ialogy  still 
of  His  body  who  died  and  rose  the  same.  Character  is 
getting  fashioned  under  an  inward  sculpture  of  moral 
experience,  so  that  the  second  life  will  be  the  orderly 
outbirth  and  continuation  of  the  first, — only  the  gross^ 
material  elements  giving  place  to  those  that  are  refined 
and  ethereal,  wearing  a  dignity  and  beauty  of  their  own, 
and  with  every  trace  of  earthliness  and  defilement 
purged  away  forever. 

As  the  preparatory  process  of  the  natural  life  goes  on 
in  secret  awhile, — as  the  seed  must  lie  some  time  hidden 
and  decaying,  till  suddenly  the  end  of  that  patient 
waiting  is  found  in  the  budding  beauty  of  the  leaf  and 
flower, — so  a  Christian  man's  entire  mortal  education  is 
but  an  obscure  making  ready  for  that  moment  when  this 
mortal  shall  put  on  immortality. 

So,  precisely,  teaches  St.  Paul.  "  There  is  a  natural 
body,  and  there  is  a  spiritual  body.  HoAvbeit,  that  is 
not  first  which  is  spiritual ;  but  that  which  is  natural, 
and  afterward  that  which  is  spiritual."  "  To  every  seed 
his  own  body."  That  is  the  identity.  This  is  all  we 
know  about  it ;  but  it  is  enough.  Everything  beyond 
is  speculation,  and  not  revealed  on  authority.  In  due 
time  the  resurrection-body  will  be  made  complete  in  all 
its  substantial  parts,  and  will  become  the  perfect  organ  of 
the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus.  "  Them  also  that  sleep 
in  Jesus,  God  will  bring  unto  Him."  Tlie  power  of 
their  rising, — the  secret  spring  of  their  new-born  life,  in 
the  regeneration  that  brings  new  heavens  and  the  new 
earth,  will  be  the  eternal  Life-Giver  himself,  the  Head  of 
the  whole  Family  of  Faith,  the  Lord  of  the  dead  and  the 
living, — having  been  first  received  here  by  faith,  and  in- 
dwelling in  the  believer's  heart. 


THE   POWER    OF   THE   EESURRECTIOK.  287 

Again, — through  Christ  our  resurrection-life  will  be 
social,  as  well  as  individual.  As  everything  in .  the 
khigdomof  heaven  has  its  type  and  model  in  the  Person 
of  our  Lord,  so  in  the  rising  of  His  form,  and  the  sub- 
sequent interviews  with  His  disciples,  we  see  a  promise 
that,  literally  and  forever,  those  to  whom  He  imparts 
His  spirit  will  move  together,  in  a  family  order  and 
freedom  about  Him, — whatever  their  employments  and 
spheres  of  action  may  be.  [N'othing  less  than  this  can  be 
taught  us  by  the  parable  of  Lazarus  with  the  patriarch, 
by  the  inspired  images  of  St.  John  in  the  Apocalypse, 
by  the  company  of  saints  made  perfect,  by  the  hymns 
and  amens  of  the  redeemed,  by  the  assembled  spirits  of 
just  men  made  perfect,  by  the  whole  fomily  in  heaven 
and  earth, — but,  more  than  all  these,  by  the  reappearing, 
in  the  body,  of  tlie  Lord  of  the  dead  and  the  living. 
Reason,  to  be  sure,  might  conjecture  or  dream  out  an 
individual  immortality, — as  four  or  ^voi  of  the  ancients 
did.  But  the  universe  is  very  large.  Whither  would  the 
forth-going  soul  take  its  strange  journey,  if  there  were 
no  centre  of  spiritual  attraction,  no  living  Head  around 
whom  the  society  must  circle,  making  a  heaven  by  His 
light  and  love,  no  Christ  receiving  the  believer  to  Him- 
self, where  He  is? 

Another  assurance,  given  by  the  fact  of  the  Saviour's 
bodily  resurrection,  is  that  of  the  independence  of  the 
spiritual  life  on  the  material  conditions  and  their  changes, 
which  accompany  dissolution.  One  of  the  sources  of 
materialism  is  the  disturbance  or  utter  eclipse  of  the' 
mental  faculties  by  physical  disease,  or  by  old  age.  You 
stand  by  a  bed  and  watch  this  distressing  process,  per- 
haps the  utter  wreck  and  dislocation  of  a  superbly 
balanced  intellect  by  a  fever,  or  you  observe  the  break- 
ing up  of  memory  and  all  coherent  thought,  between 


288  THE   POWER   OF   THE   RESUKEECTION. 

eighty  and  ninety  years  of  age.  You  see  sometimes  the 
finest  judgment  inverted,  the  sweetest  temper  irritated, 
the  holiest  piety  become  petulant,  the  strength  of  man- 
hood sunk  to  a  melancholy  childishness.  If  you  were 
observing  this  dismal  spectacle  for  the  first  time,  you 
might  sa}^,  as  many  a  medical  student  has  said  in  the  haste 
of  his  half-way  science  ;  "  It  looks  here  as  if  man  were 
nothing  after  all  but  a  piece  of  anatomical  or  automatic 
mechanism.  A  few  drops  of  blood  too  many  on  his  brain, 
a  jar  of  the  delicate  machinery  by  friction,  will  unsettle 
the  soul  from  her  seat,  and,  before  the  lamp  finally  goes 
out,  the  flame  burns  so  low  in  the  socket  that  it  seems  that 
body  and  spirit  will  be  buried  in  one  grave.  The  soul 
must  be  but  an  accidental  a2:)pendage  to  the  corporeal 
organization,  and  must  perish  with  it."  Such  thoughts 
pass  through  minds  that  take  no  pleasure  in  them  ;  and 
faith  reaches  out  her  hand,  trembling,  for  some  support. 
You  pass  then  to  the  death  scene  at  Calvary,  between 
the  sixth  to  the  ninth  hour.  There  is  no  mental  eclipse 
in  the  august  Sufierer ;  but  there  is  one  sign  set  there  to 
show  us  how  completely  the  experience  of  the  Redeemer 
includes  the  infirmities  and  agonies  of  our  humanity,  in 
its  inward  as  well  as  its  outward  trial, — the  cry,  '^  My 
God,  My  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me?"  We 
know  that  the  death  was  real^  till  the  gi^^ing  up  of  the 
ghost.  Yet  through  all  this  sinking  and  final  going  out 
of  life,  we  see  the  indestructible  soul  asserting  her 
immortality ;  unhurt  she  takes  back  all  the  energy  and 
capacity  of  which  destruction  appeared  to  deprive  her. 
It  is  a  visible  triumph.  The  bonds  of  death  are  loosed, 
because  it  is  not  possible  He  should  be  holden  of  them. 
Tlie  third  morning  brings  every  slumbering  faculty  and 
every  lifeless  fibre  up,  living,  to  its  place.  The  Jesus 
that  speaks  to  Mary  at  the  tomb,  and  to  the  disciples 


THE   POWER   OF   THE   RESUERECTION.  289 

for  forty  days,  is  the  same  Jesus  that  prays,  "  Let  this 
cup  pass  from  Me."  And  because  He  is  ours,  and  we 
are  His,  in  the  exact  language  of  our  prayer  at  the 
eucharist,  in  the  bonds  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  pos- 
session, therefore  all  signs  of  decay  and  weakness  pass 
away  with  their  transient  causes.  Beyond  the  tottering 
frame,  the  faltering  reason,  the  failing  memory,  beyond 
delirium  and  dotage,  beyond  lethargy  and  all  the  lapses 
of  the  mind,  the  soul  resumes  its  power,  its  health,  its 
vigor  of  immortal  love,  because  its  risen  life  is  in  the 
risen  Mediator,  hid  with  Christ  in  God. 

Once  more,  we  want  this  bond  of  unity  between  the 
dead  and  the  living  to  throw  a  purifying  and  ennobling 
influence  into  our  present  daily  life,  to  save  it  from  sinking, 
as  our  life  is  so  terribly  tempted  to,  into  a  besotted  mam- 
monism,  an  insane  frivolity,  or  a  miserable  selfishness ; 
— to  make  it  a  noble  and  ever  more  perfect  preparation 
for  what  is  to  come.  How  is  it  with  us  here  ?  We  want 
this  constant  "  power  "  of  a  practical  connection  between 
the  two  worlds,  to  keep  the  present  from  being  a 
mere  scramble  and  carnival  of  the  senses,  a  place  to  eat 
and  dress  and  sleep  in — as  well  as  to  keep  the  future 
from  being  a  sentimental  fantasy,  or  a  dead  blank.  The 
apostles  join  the  most  inspiring  prospects  of  the  glory  to 
be  revealed  with  their  sharpest  protests  against  common 
sins.  We  are  immersed  in  falsehoods  and  wrongs,  in 
lusts  and  ambitions.  There  is  no  resurrection  for  them. 
We  are  tempted  hourly, — nobody  denies  it, — to  unclean 
transactions,  to  covetousness  and  bad  temper,  to  envy- 
ing and  evil-speaking,  to  indolence,  impatience,  and  un- 
belief Now,  one  of  the  great  powers  by  which  we  are  to 
struggle  against  these  successfully,  and  finally  overcome, 
is  the  certainty  of  a  day  when  Christ, — who  is  life  to 
those  that  love  Him,  and  whose  eyes  are  like  a  flame 

10 


290  THE   POWER   OF   THE   RESUREECTION. 

of  fire  to  those  that  are  untrue  to  Him  and  unrighteous 
to  each  other, — shall  appear.  The  new  man  in  Him  is 
to  be  put  on  immediately.  Even  in  these  self-seeking 
earthly  streets  the  Christian  is  to  walk  unselfishly  and  un- 
blamably,  his  pride  humbled,  his  temper  controlled,  his 
motives  godly.  Whatever  is  done  in  word  or  deed  is  to 
be  done  in  the  name  and  spirit  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  risen 
from  the  dead,  by  those  that  are  on  the  way  to  meet 
Him.  The  true  Christian's  way  through  the  world  is 
somewhat  like  the  walk  of  the  disciples  with  Christ 
through  the  corn-field  on  the  Sabbath.  He  does  not 
object  to  their  rubbing  the  ears  of  corn  for  food, — i.  e.,  to 
their  hands  doing  the  ordinary  and  necessary  business, — 
because  they  are  bound  on  His  service,  and  need  strength 
to  do  it  with  for  His  kingdom's  sake.  But  they  must 
work  with  Him.  Try  to  make  a  little  heaven  where 
you  are, — in  the  house  where  you  live,  in  the  scene 
of  your  daily  toil, — and  there  will  be  little  doubt  of  the 
heaven  hereafter.  Do  your  daily  work  and  do  it  cheer- 
fully : — this  is  God's  world,  good  enough  for  you  and 
me, — bad  as  some  things  in  it  are.  Christ  thought  it 
not  too  bad  for  His  holy  feet  to  press  for  three  and  thirty 
sad,  hard-working  years.  We  are  the  workmen  of  a 
Master  who  is  as  much  here  as  there ; — the  Lord  of  the 
living  as  of  the  dead,  and  of  the  dead  as  of  the  living. 

When  we  are  asked,  therefore,  how  we  know  that  we 
shall  live  forever,  we  reply,  J^ot  because  some  book  of 
arguments,  or  pledge  in  paper  and  ink,  or  some  pretty 
parable  of  spring-blossoms  and  butterflies  tells  us  we 
may ;  but  because  every  Christian  can  say  for  himself, 
"  I  know  in  whom  I  have  believed.  My  Redeemer 
livetli,  and  no  piember  abiding  in  Him  can  perish.  He 
that  believeth  hath  the  witness  in  himself." 

We  lift  up  our  hearts  to  the  True  Tabernacle  in  the 


THE   POWER   OF   THE  RESUEEECTION.  291 

heavens,  which  the  Lord  hath  pitched  and  not  man, — 
which  will  abide  when  all  these  houses  of  our  earthly 
tabernacle  are  dissolved,  and  with  gates  ever  open  to  all 
the  separated  dwelling-places  of  the  one  catholic  and 
pilgrim  flock, — gates  through  which  "  they  go  no  more 
out."  Blessed  be  He  who  died  for  us  and  rose  again, 
that  the  entrance  is  not  shut  at  all,  day  or  night,  and  that 
those  angels  which  keep  it  are  not  partial  or  prejudiced 
angels,  not  mercenary  or  fastidious  angels.  The  poorest 
Lazarus  will  not  have  to  wait  for  room  to  be  made  for 
him  by  prouder  people.  The  woman  whose  sins  are 
many  and  the  man  whose  demons  are  legion,  penitent 
and  healed, — the  Publican  if  he  believes  and  the  Phari- 
see if  he  is  humbled,  the  Samaritan  if  he  is  "  good " 
and  the  Priest  and  Levite  if  they  are  converted,  the 
Prodigal  if  he  has  gone  home  and  the  rich  Zaccheus  if 
he  has  made  himself  poor  for  Christ's  sake, — they  all 
not  only  enter  in,  but  they  are  willing  to  be  equal  there. 
They  count  themselves  to  be  all  unworthy,  and  therefore 
are  made  kings  and  priests  together,  in  a  spiritual  royalty 
and  a  priesthood  of  likeness  to  the  High  Priest  who  is 
touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities.  He  suffers 
little  children  to  come  in,  remembering  that  He  was 
once  a  little  child  in  Bethlehem  for  them ; — He  welcomes 
aged  saints,  like  Simeon  in  whose  arms  He  was  laid. 

Last  night  some  veteran  believer  turned  his  face  away 
from  the  world  and  went  to  look  for  the  place  prepared 
for  him, — a  good  soldier  and  servant  to  his  life's  end. 
Close  by  his  side  will  be  found  the  spirit  of  an  infant, 
lying  down  to  sleep  amidst  his  playthings,  never  con- 
scious what  the  sign  of  the  baptismal  cross  on  his  fore- 
head meant.  The  flesh  of  the  old  man's  heart  will 
have  become  as  the  flesh  of  a  little  child.  The  soul  in 
the  baby's  breast  will  spring  forward  into  a  seraph's 


292  THE   POWER   OF   THE   KESUERECTION. 

strength,  keeping  its  childish  innocence.  And  both  will 
bear  a  part  with  the  same  thanksgiving  in  the  Hymn 
like  the  voice  of  many  waters,  saying,  "  Amen ;  bles- 
sing and  thanksgiving  be  unto  God  and  to  the  Lamb 
that  was  slain."  To  this  end  Christ  died  and  rose.  And 
still,  to  each  one  of  us,  as  these  seasons  of  the  resur- 
rection come  and  go,  the  Spirit  and  the  Bride  say 
"  Come  "  p  and  "  Whosoever  will,  let  him  come." 


HOW  THE  RISEN  CHRIST  IS  SEEN. 
First  Sunday  after  Easter, 

"And  as  they  went  to  tell  His  disciples,  behold,  Jesus  met  them, 
saying,  AH  hail!  And  they  came  and  held  Him  by  the  feet,  and 
worshipped  Him." — St.  Matthew  xxviii.  9. 

A  FEW  souls  that  had  been  most  intimate  with  Jesus 
up  to  the  terrible  night  at  Gethsemane,  to  whom  He  had 
become  more  than  all  of  life  or  love  besides,  pass  in  one 
moment  of  surprise  from  the  dismay  of  His  crucifixion  to 
the  complete  comfort  of  having  Him  with  them  again 
alive,  His  form  invested  with  the  mystery  of  this 
new  miracle  of  His  resurrection.  On  the  part  of  the 
women  it  seems  to  have  been  an  act  of  silent  adoration, 
not  a  syllable  being  spoken  ;  and  we  can  well  understand 
why  it  should  have  been  so.  The  Lord  himself  at  first, 
and  for  some  time,  says  but  a  single  word.  That  word 
which  would  be  as  literally  rendered  "  Rejoice,"  our  text 
translates  into  the  statelier  salutation,  "  All  hail."  The 
verse  before  tells  us  that  the  disciples  had  received  the 
angel's  announcement  of  His  rising  from  the  dead  with 
a  mixture  of  contradictory  emotions : — "  They  departed 
from  the  sepulchre  with  fear  and  great  joy  "  ; — and  this, 
too,  we  can  all  comprehend,  if  we  know  much  of  what  the 
heart  contains,  and  how  it  fluctuates  when  it  scarcely 
dares  to  believe  that  it  has  actually  grasped  the  one 
blessedness  it  has  most  longed  for.  But  what  is  of  fear 
is  not  of  faith.    The  Saviour  joins  Himself,  therefore,  to 


294  HOW   THE   RISEN    CHRIST   IS    SEEN. 

the  believing  side  of  their  hearts,  sends  away  the  last 
remaining  traces  of  their  doubts,  and  makes  their  joy 
full. 

There  are  six  separate  occasions,  at  least,  recorded  by 
the  four  Evangelists,  when  our  Lord,  after  His  resurrec- 
tion, appeared  to  human  eyes.  That  every  particular  of 
these  is  brought  into  the  narrative  is  more  than  we  are 
at  liberty  to  affirm.  St.  Luke's  statement,  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  Book  of  the  Acts,  that  during  the  forty  days, 
until  the  ascension,  Christ  was  occupied  in  giving 
instructions  to  the  apostles  respecting  the  constitution 
and  administration  of  His  Church,  now  perfectly  estab- 
lished and  set  up  in  the  world,  only  waiting  for  the 
descent  of  the  Spirit  from  the  ascended  Head,  at  Pente- 
cost, to  set  its  wheels  of  life  into  their  wonderful  opera- 
tion for  all  time,  would  rather  seem  to  imply  that  much 
is  left  unrelated,  to  be  brought  out,  from  time  to  time, 
into  practical  shape,  in  the  planting  and  training  of  the 
Church,  after  the  heavenly  pattern,  l^or  do  we  get  an 
entire  description  of  even  these  successive  appearances 
in  their  order  from  either  one  of  the  four  biographies, 
but  only  by  placing  them  all  side  by  side,  examining  care- 
fully to  see  where  each  incident  falls  in,  and  so  obtain- 
ing a  consistent  and  perfect  record.  What  gives  a  new 
meaning,  however,  to  the  whole  account,  when  it  is  thus 
arranged,  and  what  has  been  singularly  left  almost  entirely 
out  of  view  in  the  ordinary  expositions  of  it,  is  that  there 
is  evidently  from  first  to  last,  running  through  all  these 
manifestations,  an  order  of  another  sort ;  that  is,  an  inten- 
tional and  remarkable  progress  in  the  kind  and  manner 
of  Christ's  showing  Himself,  according  to  the  spiritual 
condition  of  the  persons  to  whom  He  appeared.  Each 
individual  sees  just  so  much  of  Christ  as  his  state  of 
mind  and  heart,  his  religious  quality  and  habits,  prepare 


HOW    THE   EISEN    CHRIST   IS   SEEN.  295 

him  and  enable  him.  to  see.  In  all  religious  matters  we 
receive  and  are  blessed  according  to  our  own  willingness, 
that  is,  our  faith.  With  this  clew  in  hand  you  will  find 
there  is  something  here  of  much  greater  signification  and 
beauty  and  power  than  will  be  gathered  from  a  frag- 
mentary reading  of  the  several  passages,  or  from  treating 
the  manifestations  as  so  many  disconnected  occurrences 
without  any  secret  law  of  internal  connection  relating 
them  to  each  other,  or  to  the  religious  frame  and  capacity 
of  those  who  beheld  them. 

Of  the  several  believing  women  that  had  agreed,  the 
night  before,  to  meet  each  other  at  the  sepulchre  in  the 
morning,  after  their  Jewish  Sabbath  was  over,  Mary 
Magdalene  was  found  to  be  first  in  keeping  the  appoint- 
ment. That  eager  promptness  was  a  remarkable  and 
very  beautiful  illustration  of  the  saying  of  Christ,  when 
He  had  melted  this  woman's  perverted  heart  and  changed 
her  bad  life,  that  they  to  whom  most  is  forgiven  love 
most.  She  came  very  early,  before  the  daylight  had 
fairly  divided  the  shadows  of  the  olive-garden;  she 
came  alone ;  her  love  casting  out  the  fear  of  the  solitude, 
of  the  darkness,  and  of  the  soldiers  keeping 'guard.  As 
she  comes  close  to  the  mouth  of  the  tomb,  a  single  glance 
shows  that  it  has  been  opened.  It  seems  to  be  the  popu- 
lar notion, — and  many  hymns  as  well  as  sermons  have 
perpetuated  the  mistake, — that  the  stone  was  rolled 
away  from  the  door  by  the  angel  hefore  the  resurrection, 
as  if  to  open  the  way  for  the  Lord's  arising.  But  if  you 
look  accurately  you  see  that  the  Lord's  resurrection  was 
self-accomplished  and  independent ;  and  herein  was  the 
special  proof  of  Ilis  divinity.  In  all  other  returns  of 
life  to  the  dead  some  visible  outward  agency  wrought 
the  miracle ;  but,  unlike  Lazarus  and  Jairus's  daughter, 
Christ  v^i^Q^  Himself :  the  omnipotence  that  first  volun- 


296  HOW   THE   EISEN    CHRIST    IS    SEEN. 

tarilj  yields,  lets  death  have  its  way,  and  sleeps  under  that 
face  of  death,  puts  forth  now  its  own  mysterious  energy, 
and  the  sepulchre  is  broken,  not  from  without  but  from 
within.  It  is  afterwards  that  the  angel  moves  the  stone, 
revealing  the  emptiness  of  the  place,  and  \hQ,fact  of  the 
resurrection  accomplished, — first  seating  himself  upon 
it,  as  if  to  say,  "  You,  hostile  Roman  sentinels,  are  now 
dismissed  from  your  post;  a  celestial  watch  relieves  you; 
the  earthquake  bids  you  be  gone  "  ; — then  passing  in 
to  sit  where  the  vanished  body  had  lain.  Mary  does  not 
look  into  the  chamber  itself;  but  full  of  one  thought 
only, — that  the  rulers  in  their  spite  have  robbed  the 
grave, — she  turns  back  in  her  alarm  and  grief  into  the 
city  to  tell  the  disciples.  Two  of  them, — Peter  and  John, 
run  to  the  spot, — John  outrunning  Peter,  Peter  leaping 
down  into  the  sepulclire  to  make  the  search  more  sure, 
and  Mary  Magdalene,  having  followed  them  out,  coming 
up  less  rapidly,  but  arriving  while  they  are  there.  What 
is  especially  to  be  observed,  thus  far,  is  this, — that 
although  Christ  had  actually  arisen  and  was  there,  these 
two  men,  Peter  and  John,  did  not  see  Him.  They  went 
back  into  the  city  not  knowing  what  had  taken  place. 
And  it  is  only  then,  when  they  have  gone,  that  to 
other  eyes  than  theirs,  to  another  kind  of  nature,  of  finer 
mould  and  quicker  sight,  a  woman, — a  penitent,  a  soul  in 
which  the  mighty  wonder  of  another  resurrection  had 
been  first  achieved,  weeping  because  they  seemed  to 
have  taken  away  her  Lord,  and  she  knows  not  where 
they  have  laid  Him, — it  is  to  her  tliat  the-  Lord  first 
appears.  He  speaks  only  her  name,  in  that  toae 
which,  after  she  had  heard  it  once  say,  "  Thy  faith 
hath  saved  thee,  go  in  peace,"  she  never  could  mis- 
take ;  she  knows  Him ;  she  cries  "  Master,"  with  rev- 
erent gladness;  and  she   throws  her  arms  about  those 


HOW   THE    RISEN    CHRIST   IS    SEEN.  297 

feet  which  she  had  once  washed  with  her  tears  and 
wiped  with  her  hair. 

The  second  manifestation, — that  mentioned  in  the 
text, — follows  immediately  after.  Other  women  come 
up,  with  their  spices  and  ointments.  At  the  sepulchre 
itself  they  see  only  angels, — some  of  them  one,  others 
two, — giving  rise  to  the  differing  statements  of  the  dif- 
ferent evangelists, — each  one  seeing  according  to  her 
spiritual  vision,  her  measure  of  faith,  or  her  suscepti- 
bility to  the  message  to  be  communicated.  That  mes- 
sage was  that  they  should  go  and  inform  the  apostles 
that  Christ  was  alive  from  the  dead.  On  their  way  the 
Divine  Form  meets  them,  speaks  to  them,  gives  them 
joy,  and  they,  letting  their  clogging  fears  fly,  fall  on 
their  knees  before  Him,  cling  to  Him,  and  worship  Him. 
Is  it  possible  that  a  part  of  the  motive  for  this  holding 
Him  by  the  feet,  in  a  kind  of  convulsive  clinging,  was 
an  apprehension  that  He  was  somehow  to  be  again  torn 
from  them, — caused  perhaps  by  Mary's  repeating  to 
them  His  strange  language,  "  I  am  not  yet  ascended  to 
My  Father  "  ? 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  impartial  Christ,  or 
the  Christianity  of  His  Gospel,  literally  prefers  the  one 
sex  to  the  other.  But  He  respects  the  nature  of  each, 
and  does  not  abrogate  the  laws  of  that  nature.  Had 
this  great  principle  never  been  forgotten,  how  much 
miserable  babble  the  modern  world  would  have  been 
spared,  and  with  what  dignity  woman  might  rise  to  her 
real  superiority,  in  spite  of  the  wrongs  of  men !  To 
that  one,  therefore,  which  has  the  cleaner  and  clearer 
spiritual  eyesight,  Christ  will  disclose  the  first  radiancy 
of  His  glory, — the  lustre  of  His  resurrection-face.  In 
that  sex  which  loves  most,  and  therefore  suffers  most, 
and  is  perhaps  capable  of  sinning  most,  He  finds  the 


298  HOW    THE   RISEN    CHRIST   IS    SEEN. 

fciith-faculty  most  ready  to  recognize  Him,  and  on  that 
therefore, — as  if  in  a  kind  of  compensation  for  the  first 
sin,  the  greater  weakness,  and  the  tenderer  sensitiveness 
to  all  injury, — He  bestows  the  blessing  of  the  earliest 
benediction  of  His  resmTection-voice.  He  makes  women 
the  private  messengers,  not  the  public  preachers,  of  His 
Eternal  Life;  they  are  to  tell  it  to  His  disciples,  the 
disciples  are  to  set  it  into  a  system  and  to  proclaim  it 
openly  to  the  world.  It  is  not  till  after  many  hours  of 
thinking  and  wondering,  of  anxiety,  scepticism,  incre- 
dulity, weighing  of  evidence,  and  conquest  of  the 
reluctances  of  pride,  that  the  slow  masculine  under- 
standing comes  up  to  faith  at  all,  and  finally  concludes 
that  it  must  believe.  Even  these  apostolic  men  treated 
the  testimony  of  the  women,  that  day,  as  idle  tales  and 
believed  them  not. 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  general  spiritual  distinction 
thus  drawn  between  the  sexes  reappears,  in  its  measure, 
between  individuals  of  each  of  the  two.  And  thus 
there  is  a  similar  advance  of  clearness  in  the  other  suc- 
ceeding manifestations.  The  circle  continually  enlarges, 
from  the  solitary  Mary  to  a  great  company  of  men,  as 
they  are  gradually  prepared  to  see  and  believe.  Toward 
the  evening  of  that  same  first  day,  Jesus  joined  Himself 
to  two  of  the  disciples, — evidently  the  more  spiritually- 
minded  of  them, — on  their  walk  to  Emmaus; — but 
though  He  converses  long  and  wonderfully  with  them 
and  makes  their  hearts  burn  as  He  opens  the  Scriptures, 
yet  their  eyes  are  holden ;  and  it  is  not  till  they  are 
brought  under  the  solemnity  of  the  supper  at  the  end 
of  the  day,  as  He  blesses  the  bread,  that  they  know 
Him  at  all.  In  the  course  of  the  same  day,  St.  Peter, 
creeping  slowly  out  of  his  doubts,  is  suffered  to  catch 
somewhere  a  momentary  glimpse  of  the  blessed  counte- 


HOW   THE   EISEN    CHRIST   IS   SEEN.  299 

nance  that  had  always  such  a  mysterious  power  over 
him ; — notice  that  he  also  is  a  forgiven  penitent,  and  has 
a  heart  of  such  tenderness  as  is  rare  among  men.  That 
evening,  at  a  small  assembled  company  of  them  in  Jeru- 
salem, the  doors  being  shut  for  fear,  Jesus  is  suddenly 
seen  in  the  midst.  But  they  are  still  slow  of  heart,  fail 
to  recognize  Him,  take  Ilim  for  a  phantom,  and  are  only 
convinced  by  the  condescending  demonstration  to  their 
very  senses :  "  Handle  Me  and  see ;  a  spectre  has  not 
flesh  and  bones.  Behold  My  hands  and  feet,  touch  them 
and  know  that  it  is  I  Myself  ";  and  then,  to  make  their 
faltering  belief  more  sure.  He  eats  with  them.  A  week 
later,  the  same  scene  is  repeated,  only  that  Thomas's 
doubts  are  still  more  obstinate  and  are  subdued  only  by 
the  same  patient  proofs  presented  to  His  fingers  and 
hands.  Later  still,  there  is  a  promised  meeting  on  the 
shores  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee ;  but  there  is  something 
of  the  same  slowness  of  recognition  on  the  part  of  the 
fishermen,  the  same  mingling  of  apprehension  with 
belief.  Still  the  circle  of  witnesses  widens.  On  the 
Galilean  mount,  probably  the  same  mount  where  He 
had  been  transfigured,  he  is  seen  of  "  above  five  hundred 
at  once."  Keturned  to  Jerusalem,  He  gathers  the 
twelve  about  Him  to  give  them  their  great  commission, 
and  makes  the  appointment  of  the  perpetual  ministry 
with  its  inward  grace  and  outward  seal.  The  ascension 
is  drawing  near,  to  be  followed  by  Pentecost.  So  He 
assures  them,  "  Ye  shall  receive  power  after  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  come  upon  you."  With  each  new  meet- 
ing, as  you  see,  these  interviews  grow  more  and  more 
natural.  The  disciples  are  less  troubled  and  more  at 
ease.  At  last,  when  all  is  accomplished,  when  they 
have  become  so  familiar  with  His  risen  form  as  to  be 
certain  and  trustworthy  witnesses,  and  when  from  the 


300  HOW   THE   RISEN    CHEIST    IS    SEEN. 

outward  evidence  of  tlie  bodily  senses  they  have  been 
patiently  lilted  up  to  receive  the  finer  credentials  of  the 
Spirit,  the  communion  having  become  very  close  and 
very  like  that  which  they  look  for,  through  all  their 
sulferings  and  testimonies  for  Him  till  His  coming 
again,  then  He  leads  them  out  toward  Bethany  ;  the 
final  words  spoken.  His  form  rises  into  the  heavens; 
they  cannot  hold  Him  longer,  with  all  their  love,  to 
the  earth;  henceforth  they  can  only  worship  Him  in 
that  heaven  of  glorious  life  to  which  He  is  ascended, 
and  from  which  they  look  for  Him  to  appear  once  more. 

Let  us  return  now  to  that  point  in  this  series  of 
marvels  where  the  words  of  the  text  come  in,  and  take 
out  of  them  three  or  four  great  truths  to  carry  with  us 
into  our  life. 

First  is  the  certification  afforded  by  our  Saviour's 
resurrection  to  the  fact  of  His  divinity.  "  They  came, 
and  held  Him  by  the  feet,  and  worshipped  Him." 
They  worshipj)ed  Him;  and  He  neither  forbade  nor 
checked  that  worship.  Was  not  He  the  one  true  Teacher 
of  what  true  worship  is  ?  Who  so  quick  and  sure  as  He 
to  detect  the  slightest  traces  of  sacrilege?  Who  was 
ever  so  prompt  and  so  thorough  in  putting  away  every- 
thing that  was  not  His  own  ?  He  had  said,  at  the  temp- 
tation, "  Thou  shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and 
Him  only  shalt  thou  serve."  He  had  repeated  to  a 
scribe  the  fundamental  dogma  of  the  monotheism  of  the 
Old  Testament.  "  Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord  our  God  is 
one  Lord."  Yet  He  permits  Himself  to  be  worshipped. 
Either  the  very  root  and  essence  of  His  transcendent 
nature  is  so  included  within  the  essence  and  unity 
of  God  that  He  is  God  in  man,  or  else  He  is  a  created 
being.  If  He  is  the  latter,  then  worship  paid  to  Him  is 
profanation.  If  He  is  the  former,  then  this  accepted  ador- 


HOW  THE   RISEN    CHRIST   IS    SEEN.  301 

ation  of  His  followers  is  only  a  consistent  offering  of  the 
faith  He  had  Himself  warranted  when  he  said,  "  I  and 
My  Father  are  one," — "  that  all  men  should  honor  the 
Son  even  as  they  honor  the  Father." 

It  is  noticeable  that  two  of  the  most  unqualified  dec- 
larations of  Christ's  essential  deity  were  made  to  Him, 
and  sanctioned  by  Him,  after  His  resurrection : — this 
one  of  the  actual  paying  of  divine  honors  to  Him,  which 
was  repeated  by  the  disciples  just  before  the  ascension, 
and  St.  Thomas's  hearty  confession,  "  My  Lord  and  my 
God! "  "We  see  in  this  just  that  steady  development  of 
Gospel  truth  which  is  most  natural.  Tip  to  the  time  of 
His  death  on  the  cross,  marvellous  as  the  tokens  of  the 
Lord's  superhuman  character  were,  both  in  His  words 
and  in  His  acts,  it  was  the  human  side  of  His  nature 
that  was  kept  constantly  in  view.  A  being  having  all 
the  visible  attributes  of  a  man,  subject  in  the  body  to 
mortal  limitations, — to  weakness,  pain,  fatigue,  sleep, 
hunger,  tears, — moving  and  feeling  as  other  men  move 
and  feel,  must  leave  on  all  about  him  the  impression  of  a 
human  nature ;  nor  would  it  be  very  strange  if  the  daily 
sight  of  these  external  qualities  should  partly  obscure, 
for  the  time,  the  marks  of  a  loftier  origin  and  make 
a  belief  in  His  divinity  difficult.  But  the  sepulchre  had 
now  put  a  different  aspect  on  all  these  mortal  signs ;  the 
resurrection  had  transfigured  them  and,  as  it  were,  divin- 
ized them.  It  had  never  been  heard  before  that  a  man 
lifted  himself,  by  his  own  will,  out  of  the  grave  and 
asserted  his  superiority  to  all  the  forces  of  destruction. 
Surely  here  must  be  nothing  less  than  the  Creator's 
majesty.  The  divinity  broke  through  the  mortal  in- 
vestiture. In  the  glorified  form  the  "  Son  of  God  "  stood 
revealed  not  less  than  the  "Son  of  Man."  They 
worshipped    Him,    and    He    received    their    worship. 


302  HOW    THE   KISEN    CHRIST   IS    SEEN. 

Unless  it  belonged  to  Him,  He  must  fall  instantly  in  our 
esteem  to  a  lower  place  than  any  modest,  clear-lieaded 
reformer,  or  teacher,  of  tolerable  self-knowledge,  in  all 
history;  for  no  such  human  creature  could  endure  for  an 
instant  to  accept  these  honors.  Henceforth  to  all  the 
Church  and  to  eternity  Christ  should  be  owned  in  the 
Christian  creed  and  adored  in  the  Christian  heart,  as 
"  very  God  of  very  God."  The  resurrection  sealed  that 
doctrine.  And  so  when  we  find  it  everywhere  said  in 
the  New  Testament  afterward  that  the  apostles  preached 
"  Jesus  and  the  Resurrection,"  the  meaning  clearly  is, 
they  preached  Christ  in  both  His  humanity  and  His  di- 
vinity, and  thus  a  perfect,  almighty,  all-suffering  Saviour, 
— Jesus,  the  man,  our  brother,  Mary's  child,  and  the 
Risen  One^ — our  eternal  Lord  and  Judge.  Begotten  of 
the  Father  before  all  worlds !  Begotten,  not  made,  who 
for  our  sake  became  man ! 

Place  beside  this  truth  another.  These  faithful  believ- 
ers were  not  believers  in  a  one-sided  or  ultra  spiritual- 
ism. They  ^^  held  Him  hy  the  feet,  and  worshipped 
Him."  It  is  contained  in  the  original  sense  of  the  latter 
clause,  that  they  knelt  down  to  Him.  Here  were  two 
outward  signs  of  a  living  faith,  and  the  faith  was  evi- 
dently the  more  living  for  them  both : — the  touch  and 
clasping  of  the  hands,  and  bended  knees.  Both  were 
welcome  to  Him  who  knows  every  secret  spring  of  the 
soul's  strength,  and  who  replaces  the  dead  formalism  of 
the  Jew  with  the  vital  forms  of  a  spiritual  kingdom. 
So  two  principles  pervade  the  whole  system  of  redemp- 
tion, from  end  to  end.  The  Redeemer  conforms  to  botli 
when,  from  being  unseen  in  the  heavens.  He  puts  on  our 
material  flesh  and  blood,  to  reach  us  men.  He  conforms 
to  them  again,  when,  in  that  glorified  body,  after  His 
resurrection, — which  He  has  the  power  to  render  visible 


HOW   THE   RISEN    CHRIST   IS    SEEN.  303 

or  invisible  at  Ilis  pleasure, — He  yet  lets  the  women  fold 
their  arms  about  His  feet,  bids  the  incredulous  apostles 
touch  and  handle  Him,  and  convinces  Thomas  by  putting 
his  hand  into  His  side.  He  conforms  to  them  both 
when  He  solemnly  establishes  the  two  sacraments  and 
the  visible  ordinances  of  worship  in  His  Church ; — He 
gives  grace,  and  its  sign. 

Again,  a  supreme  value  is  set  here,  for  the  Christian 
life,  on  the  Saviour's  personal  presence.  To  us,  and  to 
the  Church  for  eighteen  hundred  years,  that  presence 
has  not  been  corporeal ;  yet  it  has  been  literal  and  real. 
What  would  life  immediately  become,  to  any  Christian 
who  has  really  learned  or  even  tasted  wliat  it  is  to  live 
in  Christ  and  to  have  Christ  live  in  him,  if  that  reality 
of  Jesus  Christ  present  with  him  were  stricken  out  of 
his  soul !  What  would  his  days  of  loneliness  be,  his 
times  of  depression  and  discouragement,  when  all  that 
he  has  done  seems  vain  and  all  that  he  tries  to  do  unat- 
tainable, his  hours  of  extreme  suffering,  his  bereave- 
ments, his  seasons  of  repentance  or  remorse?  How 
could  they  be  borne  at  all  if  we  could  not  do  as  the 
women  did,  go  to  Him,  hold  Him  by  the  feet,  look  into 
His  face,  be  sure  of  His  sympathy  and  His  abiding 
love  ? 

Men  of  action,  men  of  thought,  if  any  of  you  do  not 
answer  to  this,  or  feel  any  reality  in  it,  I  do  not  know 
how  to  reason  with  you  about  it.  We  can  only  tell  what  we 
have  seen  or  felt, — and  that  always  very  inadequately  and 
feebly  to  those  that  have  seen  nothing  and  felt  nothing 
of  the  kind.  This  much  some  of  us  cannot  help  seeing. 
Those  institutions  and  movements  in  the  world,  how- 
ever moral  or  religious  their  object,  and  however  brisk 
their  activity,  seem  to  have  no  deep  or  strong  or  perma- 
nent life  in  them  which  are  without  this  livinor  and  con- 


304  HOW   THE   RISEN    CHRIST   IS   SEEN. 

scious  connection  with  the  presence  and  person  of  Christ, 
so  as  to  draw  their  constant  supplies  of  power  from 
Him.  Those,  on  the  other  hand,  however  few  their 
numbers,  or  scanty  their  treasuries,  or  apparently  insig- 
nificant their  results,  which  are  rooted  and  grounded  in 
Him,  animated  by  the  daily  breath  of  prayers  to  Him, 
in  their  members  and  leaders  consecrated  to  Him  per- 
sonally, holding  Him  by  the  feet  and  worshipping  Him, 
— these  seem  to  have  in  them  a  certain  tranquil  and  im- 
mortal power  for  good,  and  to  be  the  salt  of  the  earth. 
So  too  with  the  souls  of  men.  With  whatever  good 
intentions,  honorable  aims,  charitable  feelings,  and 
abundant  energy,  they  that  are  without  this  conscious 
connection  with  the  living  and  personal  Head  seem  like 
streams,  however  full,  which  run  from  a  cistern  and  not 
from  the  fountain  in  the  hills.  They  have  all  that 
human  goodness  and  zeal  can  have  without  that  one 
secret  and  inefiable  element  of  Christian  love,  eternal 
and  inexhaustible  ;  and  therefore,  while  they  are  never 
to  be  judged  uncharitably,  they  are  not  to  be  trusted  as 
we  trust  what  Christ  holds  in  His  almighty  hand  and 
stamps  with  His  cross.  He  does  not  say  to  them,  "  All 
hail,"  and  they  do  not  hold  Him  by  the  feet  and  worship 
Him.  More  than  that,  some  of  us,  I  am  sure,  have  seen 
this.  A  pure  and  aspiring  heart,  praying  and  struggling 
for  a  deeper  peace  than  it  has  ever  found,  generous,  dis- 
interested, devout,  yet  always  restless  and  always  dissat- 
isfied because  not  conscious  of  an  embraced  and  wor- 
shipped Christ,  at  last  begins,  perhaps  without  argument 
or  theological  process,  to  open  its  spiritual  e^^es  on  the 
form  of  the  Son  of  God, — to  say,  timidly  and  yet  confi- 
dently, "  I  know  not  yet  how  to  frame  this  trust  in  me 
into  phrases  and  formularies,  and  yet  I  know  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  with  me,  is  my  Saviour,  and  has  for  me  all  the 


HOW   THE   RISEN    CHRIST   IS    SEEN.  305 

power  and  love  I  need ;  I  am  sure  He  lives  greatly  in 
me  and  for  me,  and  that  I  live  a  little  in  Him ;  I  know 
that  my  God  comes  to  me  in  Him ;  I  know  that  all  I 
am  capable  of  receiving  of  God  I  find  in  Christ ;  I  meet 
Him  in  the  furnace  of  fire ;  I  have  found  Him  at  Geth- 
semane ;  I  have  felt  Him  when  I  was  tempted  in  some 
wilderness ;  I  have  rejoiced  to  behold  Him  risen  when  I 
have  walked  among  the  graves  of  those  whose  lives  have 
sunk  away  as  water  sinks  into  the  sand  ; — yes,  Him  whom 
having  not  seen  I  love,  and  in  whom  though  now  I  see 
Him  not,  yet  believing  I  rejoice.  I  have  known  Him  in 
the  breaking  of  bread,  I  have  heard  His  voice  forgiving 
me  when  I  confessed  to  Him,  and  His  '  Be  of  good 
cheer,  I  have  overcome  the  world,'  when  the  world 
seemed  to  be  overcoming  me.  All  this  is  real  to  me." 
Whenever  this  has  so  been  said,  we  must  have  felt, 
I  am  sure,  that  there  was  a  new  birth  into  an  alto- 
gether difierent  and  higher  life;  and  that  this  life  in 
a  man  is  precisely  what  the  Gospel  means  for  him, 
comes  to  give  him,  and  what  nothing  else  is.  Blessed, 
oh  blessed  are  they  who  whereas  they  have  been  blind, 
now  so  see  I  Define  or  explain  their  faith  as  they  will, 
they  have  found  out  what  it  is  to  hold  Jesus  by  the  feet 
and  to  worship  Him. 

Finally,  what  we  saw  to  be  true  of  the  several  disci- 
ples in  their  witnessings  of  Christ's  manifestations  after 
He  arose  is  equally  true,  only  in  a  slightly  difierent 
way,  of  His  followers  here.  They  that  were  spiritually 
best  prepared,  by  aftection,  by  earnestness,  by  sympathy 
with  the  spirit  of  His  life  and  cross,  and  by  love  for  Him, 
had  the  clearest  and  earliest  disclosures  of  His  glorified 
presence.  It  is  just  so  now.  Tliey  that  are  least  occu- 
pied with  themselves,  least  engrossed  with  a  business 
that  is  all   of  this  world,  or  witli  a  social  life  and  its 


306  HOW   THE   BISEN    CHKIST   IS    SEEN. 

fashions  that  are  all  afar  off  from  the  simplicity  of  His 
beatitudes,  they  that  are  trying  to  do  and  bear  His  will 
in  their  houses,  they  that  are  busy  looking  after  His  lost 
sheep,  they  that  are  ready  to  believe  more  because  they 
use  the  faith  they  have,  they  that  repent  most  sorrow- 
fully and  put  not  their  boast  in  anything  that  they  do,— 
these  are  the  souls  to  which  He  will  unveil  the  glory  of 
His  face,  whose  eyes  He  will  touch  and  open  that  they 
may  see  more  and  more  of  His  truth,  and  in  whose 
hearts  He  will  dwell  as  He  dwells  in  no  temple  that  is 
made  with  hands. 


WHAT  IS  HEAYEK? 

Second  Sunday  after  Easter, 

"  Father,  I  will  that  they  also,  whom  Thou  hast  given  Me,  be 
with  Me  where  I  am." — St.  John  xvii.  24. 

From  the  accounts  we  have  of  the  teaching  of  both 
Christ  and  His  apostles,  they  seem  to  have  given  less 
space  than  we  might  have  expected  to  the  particulars  of 
the  souPs  condition  after  death.  A  few  great,  simple, 
commanding,  comprehensive  assurances  are  made  to 
stand  out  before  us,  with  outlines  that  are  very  sharp 
and  foundations  that  are  very  broad  and  firm,  like  the 
mountain  peaks  of  a  country  towards  which  we  sail. 
The  region  around  them  lies  indistinct,  till  we  come  to 
it;  it  is  enough  that  the  summits,  with  their  heads 
lifted  to  the  sun,  tell  us  that  the  continent  is  there,  with 
only  some  general  intimations  of  its  extent,  and  the  mark 
of  the  shore.  The  fact  of  the  Christian's  immortality, 
the  fact  of  the  judgment  at  the  entrance,  the  fact  of  the 
separation  of  the  righteous  from  the  wicked,  the  fact 
that  this  judgment  proceeds  on  one  principle,  and  tliat 
this  separation  is  determined  by  one  affection  or  the  ab- 
sence of  it,  the  fiict  that  afterward  there  are  two  parted 
families,  each  of  them  a  social  state,  the  perfect  blessed- 
ness of  the  one  consisting  supremely  in  the  fully  recog- 
nized presence  and  love  of  the  Lord,  and  the  complete 
wretchedness  of  the  other  in  absence  from  Him, — these 


308  WHAT   IS    HEAVEN? 

are  all.  However  much  besides  a  Christian  intelligence 
may  reasonably  infer  or  Christian  hope  habitually 
expect,  gathering  it  up  from  scriptural  allusions  or  nat- 
ural analogies,  these  only  are  the  established  verities. 
They  are  taken  out  of  the  realm  of  doubt,  or  conjecture, 
and  are  settled,  as  the  hills  are  settled.  On  these  the 
Scriptures  lay  all  the  stress.  Around  and  under  them 
they  spread  out  all  that  immortal  land.  To  the  faithful 
who  seek  by  patient  well-doing  there  shall  be  glory, 
honor,  and  immortality ; — but  tribulation  and  anguish 
to  every  soul  that  loveth  and  doeth  evil.  And  yet  to 
every  Christian  mind  there  must  always  be  an  intense 
interest  in  the  questions  that  arise  about  that  future  life. 
It  is  not  the  intellect  only,  but  the  heart,  that  asks  them. 
"What  kind  of  a  life  will  it  be  ?  What  is  heaven  ?  In 
what  part  of  the  universe  will  it  be  found  ?  What  will 
be  its  appearance  or  scenery  ?  What  can  those  occupa- 
tions be  that, — when  this  world  and  all  its  business  and 
all  its  resources,  its  lights  and  shadows,  its  cares  and 
comforts,  have  swept  away  into  the  common  darkness, — 
will  come  in  to  fill  up  and  satisfy  the  desires  of  the  soul, 
forever  and  ever  ?  Who  will  our  companions  be  ?  How 
much  of  what  we  know  and  feel,  and  call  "  ours,"  in  this 
present  life,  will  in  any  form  be  restored  or  renewed  to 
us  there  ?  Other  kindred  inquiries  will  occur  to  many 
of  you  as  having  visited  and  revisited  your  minds,  dwell- 
ing there  perhaps  unanswered,  till  the  silence  became 
oppressive.  Meantime,  modern  science  pushes  forward 
nearly  all  its  investigations  on  the  plane  of  physical 
phenomena  and  terrestrial  life.  Enterprise,  labor,  dis- 
covery, commerce,  art,  civilization, — these  passionate  and 
vigorous  interests  tell  us  nothing  of  the  spiritual  world, 
— which  nevertheless  girds  and  besets  us  all  about,  and 
hangs  close  above  us ; — they  sometimes  rather  blind  us 


WHAT   IS    HEAVEN?  309 

to  it,  though  they  need  not.  And  so,  unless  Faith  lifts 
her  hand  and  opens  the  veil,  our  life,  whether  intellectual 
or  industrial,  is  all  only  a  one-sided  movement,  and  our 
souls  are  bereft  of  their  grandest  strength  and  peace. 

Now,  the  ]^ew  Testament  has  its  own  way  of  meeting 
all  these  questions.  Instead  of  taking  them  up  one  by 
one,  and  attempting  to  give  us  particular  information, 
— which  we  should,  of  necessity,  from  the  difference  be- 
tween that  other  world  and  this,  be  unable  to  under- 
stand, and  which  would  do  little  for  us  but  excite  an 
unhealthy  curiosity  and  disqualify  us  for  what  we  have 
to  do  here, — it  takes  us  by  the  hand  and  draws  us 
directly  to  Jesus  Christ.  It  puts  us  into  immediate 
communication  with  Him.  It  points  us  to  His  person. 
It  persuades  us  that  all  the  good  we  can  hope  for  or 
receive  will  come  from  Him.  It  assures  us,  by  the  cross 
He  bears,  that  all  our  sins,  under  which  we  were  dying 
an  endless  death,  have  remission  and  cleansing  through 
His  sacrifice.  It  shows  us  in  Him  a  Love  that  is 
infinite  in  its  tenderness  and  patience, — but  at  the  same 
time  a  Power  to  take  care  of  us,  a  Wisdom  to  en- 
lighten and  guide  us,  and  a  Holiness  to  sanctify  us, 
in  equal  measure  with  that  Love.  Then^  when  it  has 
drawn  and  fastened  to  Him  our  supreme  faith,  so  that 
we  feel  there  is  no  really  good  thing  that  we  can  have 
or  desire  but  it  will  come  to  us  through  Him,  it  begins 
to  speak  to  us  of  the  other  world  to  come.  It  lets  us 
hear  Him  say,  "  Father,  I  will  that  they  also,  whom  Thou 
•hast  given  Me,  be  with  Me  where  I  am."  Heaven 
will  be  to  he  with  Ilim^  forever, — with  Him  in  a  deeper 
and  larger  and  more  perfect  sense  than  we  ever  can  be 
here ;  having  a  deeper  knowledge  of  Him  than  is  pos- 
sible here,  a  clearer  sight,  a  closer  and  more  actual  com- 
munion, larger  receptions  of  His  spirit.     Heaven  will  be 


310  WHAT  IS   HEAVEN? 

to  see  more,  and  more  constantly,  the  wonderful  richness 
of  His  character,  its  tenderness  and  grandeur,  its  purity 
and  holiness,  its  glory  and  beauty.  Heaven  will  be  to 
comprehend  more  entirely  what  it  was  that  He  did  for 
us  when  He  so  loved  ns  as  to  give  Himself  for  us,  and 
what  the  suffering  and  the  sin  were  from  which  His 
sinless  suffering  saved  us.  Heaven  will  be  to  be  made 
like  Him,  fashioned  into  that  mysterious  and  most 
excellent  living  image.  "  We  know  not  what  we  shall 
be,  but  we  know  that  we  shall  be  like  Him,  for  we  shall 
see  Him  as  He  is." 

Mark  how  the  doctrine  opens  by  this  method.  Heaven 
is  not,  then,  as  it  is  often  represented,  a  mere  appendage 
or  supplement  to  this  life,  affixed  to  its  end.  ]^or  is  it  a 
foreign  territory  with  which  we  become  acquainted  by  an 
outside  description,  and  then  enter  by  a  second  existence. 
It  is  rather  the  perfecting  and  widening  out  of  that  life 
of  Christ  within  the  discijple^  or  of  the  disciple's  life  with 
Him, — whichever  way  we  express  it,  for  it  is  really  both, 
— only  in  conditions  of  greater  freedom  and  power. 
This  life  was  ''  new  "  whenever  we  chose  to  take  up  our 
Christian  privileges,  and  to  treat  them  as  realities. 
But  whenever  it  began,  once  begun  it  is  everlasting. 
Heaven  is  the  great  part  of  it  yet  to  come,  and  we  know 
it  is  by  far  the  best  part,  because  it  will  be  more  Christ- 
like. His  spirit  and  His  will  must  act  with  unhindered 
and  unlimited  power,  through  all  hearts.  The  obstacles 
and  drawbacks  of  sin  and  sorrow,  remorse  and  suffering, 
of  bad  passions  and  misunderstandings,  of  weakness  and 
guilt,  of  parsimony,  pride  and  conceit,  of  disease  and 
death,  will  have  come  to  an  end.  You  have  held 
between  your  fingers  in  April  a  little  black  powder 
rubbed  from  the  pods  of  a  lily ;  and  you  have  seen,  at 
midsummer,  the  superb  blossom  that  seems  as  if  it  might 


-WHAT   IS   HEAVEN?  311 

have  been  transplanted  from  Eden.  That  heavenly  life 
80  grows  out  of  this  Christian  life  here,  as  the  perfect, 
splendid  flower  grows  out  of  the  small,  plain  seed  in  the 
dirt, — yet  not  by  any  law  of  material  nature,  but  by  the 
law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus.  Heaven  is  not 
a  place  to  which  Christ  goes  as  a  foreigner,  tin  ding  it 
heaven  already.  He  makes  it  heaven.  It  will  be  heaven 
to  any  one  of  us  only  as  we  have  Him^r^^  in  our  hearts. 
Heaven  to  us  is  included  in  Christ,  as  the  less  is  included 
in  the  greater.  It  is  the  unfolding  or  flowering  out  of 
the  energy  of  His  Light  and  Love.  We  are  not  to  speak 
of  "  going  to  heaven,"  as  if  that  were  the  first  thing ;  but 
of  becoming  one  with  Christ, — and  then  going  to  heaven 
will  come  in,  in  its  time,  as  a  part,  the  perfect  part  of 
that.  Once  united  in  living  sympathies  and  aftections 
with  Him,  so  that  we  live  for  the  same  holy  and  blessed 
things  for  which  He  lives,  heaven  comes  of  course. 

Christ  himself  says  in  His  prayer  that  it  is  now, — not 
merely  that  it  will  be, — eternal  life  to  know  the  Father 
and  the  Son.  He  tells  His  followers  that  He  goes  to 
prepare  a  place  for  them,  that  they  may  be  with  Him 
where  He  is.  He  says,  "  He  that  eateth  My  flesh  and 
drinketh  My  blood  hath  eternal  life."  Everywhere  He 
teaches  that  immortality  is  not  a  gift  conferred  from 
without,  as  when  we  are  transported  from  one  country 
to  another,  but  that  it  grows  up  in  the  soul  as  the  neces- 
sary fruit  of  faith  and  holiness.  St.  John  says  you  may 
know  whether  you  have  eternal  life  by  knowing  whether 
you  believe  in  the  Son  of  God.  None  of  the  apostles 
has  any  conception  of  heaven  and  its  happiness,  except 
in  direct  connection  with  the  presence  of  the  Eedeemer. 
The  glimpses  we  have  in  the  Apocalypse  of  heavenly 
employments  always  disclose  Him  to  us  as  the  Life  of 
the  place. 

fTJiriVBRSITri 


312  WHAT   IS   HEAVEN? 

It  may  be  inquired,  whether  this  would  not  somehow 
confine  or  narrow  down  the  range  of  the  heavenly 
enjoyments.  Would  there  not  be  a  wearisome  monotony 
in  the  unvaried  celebration,  through  eternity,  of  any^ 
the  most  glorious  King,  the  most  enthusiastically  loved 
and  admired  Leader,  or  even  of  a  Divine  Deliverer  ? 
But  it  needs  to  read  Scripture  with  only  a  moderate 
intelligence  to  correct  any  such  impression.  The  sacred 
writers  never  meant  to  say  that  the  total  and  uninter- 
rupted occupation  of  the  future  state  will  be  a  literal 
ofi*ering  of  vocal  praise,  in  song,  to  the  Saviour.  They 
freely  picture  that  life  under  strong  imagery.  Worship 
will  be  there,  as  here,  the  highest  and  most  satisfying 
act  of  the  spirit.  Think  of  the  immortal  sublimity  of 
those  celestial  liturgies;  of  the  great  harmonies  that 
will  lift  up  the  multitude  of  souls  that  no  man  can  num- 
ber, and  of  the  real  " marriage  supper"  !  It  will  be  the 
highest  sense  of  satisfaction  and  rapture  that  we  ever  have 
in  these  services  and  sanctuaries  on  earth,  multiplied  and 
intensified  ten  thousand  fold  ;  and  then  it  would  not  be 
strange  if  it  were  more  frequent  or  longer  continued. 
But  we  must  remember  that  we  shall  remain  social 
beings  there,  and  carry  all  our  individuality  along  with 
us,  and  have  all  the  powers  and  faculties  there  that  we 
have  here.  Of  course  they  must  be  used.  There  is  not 
the  least  reason  to  doubt  that  our  actual  employments  in 
heaven  will  not  only  be  loftier  but  far  more  diversified 
and  wide-spread  than  they  are  here  or  than  we  can  even 
conceive  of  their  being  made  here.  When  any  soul 
becomes  inspired  and  enlarged  with  a  personal  devotion 
to  the  Saviour  in  this  world,  that  certainly  does  not 
restrict  its  energies,  or  make  its  movements  monotonous. 
On  the  contrary,  every  capacity  is  quickened  by  this 
grand   affection.     And   so   in  heaven.     Christian   love 


WHAT  IS   HEAVEN?  313 

being  the  motive  of  every  act,  the  acts  themselves  may 
be  infinitely  various;  and,  thankful  service  to  the 
Saviour  being  the  delight  of  that  Eternal  Day,  the 
service  may  show  itself  in  such  differing  ministries  as 
the  busiest  and  most  useful  Christians  here  are  not  able 
to  imagine ;  and  there  shall  be  among  them  things  that 
God  hath  prepared  for  those  that  love  Ilim  which  eye 
hath  not  seen,  or  ear  heard,  or  heart  conceived. 

And  yet,  my  friends,  if  we  take  any  one  of  those 
great  changes  in  our  condition  which  we  should  all  alike 
agree  in  considering  the  most  desirable  as  we  pass  from 
the  earthly  to  the  heavenly  state,  and  dwell  upon  it,  we 
shall  see  how  it  must  proceed  directly  from  the  influence 
and  the  power  of  the  presence  of  Christ,  judging  only 
by  what  He  revealed  Himself  as  being  and  doing  in 
this  world.  We  should  all  desire,  for  example,  an 
increase  of  the  powers  of  life  and  love  and  motion.  See, 
then,  how  when  He  was  on  earth  He  wrought  just  that 
invigorating  and  quickening  effect  on  every  soul  that 
gave  itself  to  Him,  illuminating  ordinary  intellects  in 
such  a  way  that  they  became  the  teachers  of  all  ages, 
turning  mechanics  into  masters  of  the  minds  of  scholars 
and- thinkers,  making  a  few  fishermen  the  famous  men 
of  the  world,  and  establishing  among  jealous  nations 
and  races  a  brotherhood  that  outlasts  all  their  revolu- 
tions. We  should  desire  exemption  from  what  hurts 
and  afflicts  us  here,  especially  from  disease  and  death. 
Consider  how  much  of  the  Saviour's  time  on  earth  was 
given  to  the  removal  of  these  evils,  and  especially  that 
there  is  no  trace  of  any  such  thing  on  earth  as  the  restor- 
ation of  life  to  the  dead,  since  the  world  began,  except 
through  His  interposition.  We  should  long  for  a  society 
where  mutual  charity  would  take  the  place  of  selfish- 
ness, strife,  and  over-reaching,  as  the  principle  of  social 


314  WHAT   IS    HEAVEN? 

commerce  and  advancement.  And  how  plain  it  is,  from 
Christ's  teachings  and  sacrifices  here,  that  just  that 
blessed  change  must  come  in  a  society  where  His  spirit 
would  be  the  unresisted  law.  We  should  hope  to  be 
freed  from  sin.  And  who  could  doubt  that  He  who 
left  heaven  and  came  into  the  world  on  purpose  to 
cleanse  and  deliver  it  from  sin  would  banish  it  forever 
from  that  heaven  which  is  fashioned  after  His  own  like- 
ness, and  is  the  fruit  of  His  own  spirit  ?  No  night,  no 
tears,  no  suffering,  no  sin, — what  better  marks  than 
these  could  there  be  of  a  world  where  the  compassion 
of  the  Son  of  God  reigns  without  limit  and  without 
restraint  ? 

Observe,  in  the  next  place,  how  this  doctrine  harmo- 
nizes with  the  fact  that  the  Scripture  representations  of 
the  heavenly  world  differ  so  much  from  each  other.  They 
differ  because  they  are  not  literal  but  figurative;  they 
are  figurative  because  their  object  is  not  to  inform  the 
understanding  but  to  animate  the  affections  and  inspire 
a  glorious  hope  ;  and,  for  the  same  reason,  these  images 
are  not  made  to  be  consistent  with  one  another.  God 
designs  that  we  shall  expect  and  desire  the  heaven  He 
has  prepared,  not  because  we  know  in  detail  what  is 
there,  but  because  we  trust  Him,  and  believe  that  it  is 
a  world  where  the  law  of  Christ  has  unobstructed  and 
perfect  sway.  To  kindle  and  sustain  in  us  that  faith, 
His  Word  represents  heaven  under  images  which,  in 
their  natural  sense,  are  quite  incompatible  with  each 
other.  It  is  a  city  of  gems  and  gold,  it  is  an  open 
country  with  trees  and  running  water,  it  is  a  world  with 
no  more  sea  and  it  is  a  sea  of  glass,  it  is  a  house  and  it 
is  an  innumerable  multitude  of  worshippers  on  a  moun- 
tain top,  before  the  throne.  These  are  the  helps  applied 
to  our  feeble  spiritual  sense,  through  the  imagination. 


WHAT   18    HEAVEN  ?  315 

which  is  the  faculty  most  easily  reached  and  moved,  ac- 
cording to  the  whole  practice  of  Revelation,  from  end 
to  end.  But  we  are  not  left  to  these  uncertainties  of 
the  imagination.  Underneath  these  there  is  a  fixed  and 
solid  substance  of  revealed  truth.  To  this  truth  every 
separate  image  points,  exhibiting  some  one  or  another  of 
its  attractive  faces.  The  truth  itself  is,  that  of  that 
society  of  redeemed  souls,  glad  in  their  infinite  joy, 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  centre,  the  light,  and  the  life.  There 
is  no  discord  or  division  there,  because  He  is  love, — and 
there, — as  it  is  not  here, — every  spirit  and  the  whole 
place  take  their  law  and  temper  from  Him.  E'othing 
that  is  defiled  or  that  maketh  a  lie  enters  there,  because 
He  is  pure  and  true.  If  the  memory  of  the  miseries  of 
this  life  remains  at  all,  such  recollections  will  not  be 
painful ;  the  knotted  problems  will  all  be  loosened  and 
dissolved  in  the  celestial  chemistry  of  some  strange,  new 
light ;  for  He  has  pledged  Himself  that  there  shall  be 
no  pain  there.  No  sick-beds ;  no  watching  all  night  for 
the  last  breath  of  your  child ;  no  anxious  question  what 
that  secret  symptom  means  which  looks  like  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end ;  no  broken  friendships ;  no  lost  love ;  no 
aching  heart ;  no  bitterness  of  a  rebellious  and  profligate 
child ;  they  shall  hunger  no  more.  There  will  be  no 
wretchedness  of  unfulfilled  desire,  of  failure  to  do  right, 
of  unanswered  afiection,  of  baffled  aspiration  and  poor 
performance, — because,  having  chosen  Him  before  all, 
and  got  clear  of  all  the  earthly  competitions  and  short- 
comings, we  shall  have  enough  in  having  Him,  and  shall 
be  satisfied  with  His  likeness. 

It  is  another  and  very  practical  blessing  of  the  same 
doctrine  that  it  makes  large  room  for  the  differing 
notions  and  difiering  degrees  of  sensibility  that  Christian 
men  may  have,  according  to  their  constitutions  and  cir- 


316  WHAT   IS   HEAVEN? 

cumstances,  about  that  next  world.  If  you  find  your 
mind  less  disposed  to  dwell  upon  the  pleasures  there 
than  the  duties  here,  that  need  not  trouble  the  conscience, 
provided  only  your  devotion  to  your  Lord  is  undivided, 
and  your  life  is  consecrated  to  the  doing  of  His  will. 
That,  rest  assured,  is  the  main  thing.  Some  of  the  most 
godly,  self-sacrificing,  and  Christlike  Christians  I  have 
ever  known  have  never  said  very  much  about  what  is 
to  come  after  death.  Heart  and  hands  and  mind  were 
all  too  busy  doing  the  Master's  work  here,  where  it 
needs  to  be  done  so  much,  day  by  day.  Other  Chris- 
tians dwell  largely  on  that  future,  and  gather  a  needed 
refreshment  from  the  labor  or  the  endurance  of  the  pres- 
ent by  anticipating  the  glory  that  is  to  be  revealed.  Of 
these,  again,  some  fasten  on  one  and  some  on  another  of 
the  scriptural  aspects  of  that  coming  world,  for  their 
consolation  and  encouragement,  just  as  the  Spirit  of 
inspiration,  suiting  the  supply  to  every  necessity,  intended 
they  should.  You  meet  these  diversities  constantly  in 
the  biographies  of  saintly  men.  Robert  Hall  said  once 
to  Wilberforce,  "My  chief  conception  of  heaven  is  rest." 
"  Mine,"  replied  Wilberforce,  "  is  love, — love  to  God,  and 
love  to  every  bright  and  holy  inhabitant  of  that  glorious 
place."  J^ow  Robert  Hall  spent  a  great  part  of  his  time 
under  acute  bodily  anguish,  and  no  wonder  he  longed 
for  rest.  Wilberforce,  a  man  whose  whole  energies,  in 
parliament  and  private  life,  were  given  to  efforts  for 
the  realization  of  the  law  of  love  in  legislation  and 
society,  naturally  thought  of  the  better  country  as  a 
social  state  founded  on  the  same  principle.  Intellectual 
Christians  may  long  for  the  wider  knowledge,  when  they 
shall  see  no  more  as  through  a  glass,  but  face  to  face. 
Gentle  natures,  reading  all  secrets  and  learning  all  truth 
through  their  hearts,  long  and  thirst  for  such  measures  of 


WHAT  IS   HEAVEN  ?  31 7 

affection  as  they  have  waited  for  and  never  found  among 
men.  The  evening  before  he  died,  the  devout  and  pro- 
found German  student,  Spener,  a  reformer  of  his  time, 
court  preacher  of  Dresden,  and  one  of  the  founders  of  the 
University  at  Halle,  asked  for  the  reading  of  the  seven- 
teenth chapter  of  St.  Jolm,  saying  that  it  never  could  be 
comprehended  in  this  world,  but  that  he  was  now  glad 
to  be  going  where  all  would  be  explained.  Poor  people 
may  very  well  think  of  the  abundance  so  often  promised 
them  in  the  resurrection, — like  a  woman  in  consumption 
I  knew  of,  lying  under  a  few  rags  on  a  heap  of  straw, 
who  answered  to  the  visitor's  question,  "  Is  this  all  you 
have  ? "  ''  It  is  all,  except  Christ.  It  will  do  well 
enough ;  I  shall  exchange  it  very  soon  for  His  unspeak- 
able riches."  Strong-handed  and  enterprising  people 
may  wonder  whether  there  will  be  enough  to  do  there, 
and  turn  right  eagerly  only  to  the  prospect  of  running 
on  the  active  errands  of  their  King.  The  parents  of 
dead  children  cannot  help  looking  day  and  night,  to  see 
the  sweet  faces  and  kiss  the  bright  foreheads  that  are 
missing. 

In  all  these  varieties  of  expectation  we  find  only  the 
permitted,  harmless  workings  of  a  law  of  our  nature. 
They  remind  us  of  one  of  the  serious  sayings  of  Charles 
Lamb,  that  "the  shapings  of  our  heavens  are  the  modi- 
fications of  our  constitution."  They  run  into  danger,  and 
encourage  irreligion,  and  undermine  faith,  only  when 
they  tempt  us  to  put  anything  else  in  heaven  before 
Him  who  alone  opens  it  to  us,  or  makes  it  what  it  is; 
when  they  dispose  us  to  insist  on  anything  whatever  as 
essential  to  our  future  peace  save  what  He  may  see  fit 
to  give  us,  or  when  they  hide  the  one  real  and  certain 
glory  there  behind  mortal  forms.  It  is  a  false  and  not  a 
true  Christianity  which  tells  us  first  to  be  sure  and  get  to 


318  WHAT   IS   HEAVEN  ? 

heaven,  sending  us  to  Christ  only  as  a  means  to  get  there 
and  be  happy.  True  Christianity  calls  us  first  to  Christ, 
for  what  He  is,  and  then  tells  us  in  its  gracious  promises 
that  if  we  follow  Him  faithfully  we  shall  be  with  Him 
where  He  is  forever,  satisfied  to  awake  in  His  likeness. 

'No  doubt,  sad  thoughts  may  pass  through  some  of  your 
minds  about  some  of  the  dead,  and  anxious  thoughts 
about  some  of  the  living,  as  to  where  this  truth  of  the 
Gospel  may  leave  them, — and  with  what  a  gulf  of  separa- 
tion between.  For  the  first,  we  had  better  dismiss  them, 
committing  all  the  departed, — and  the  more  so,  the  more 
we  loved  them, — in  faith,  in  hope,  in  charity,  to  Him 
who  mercifully  has  all  judgment  assigned  to  Him, 
because  He  is  Son  of  man,  and  has  borne  our  infirmities. 
For  the  others,  our  anxioiis  thoughts  of  the  living  that 
we  love  best,  lest  there  should  be  some  dreary  separation 
hereafter  from  them, — only  let  these  beget  in  us  more 
faithful  intercessions  for  them,  more  consistent  and 
blameless  lives  to  convince  them,  more  of  Christ  re- 
flected in  our  daily  dispositions  and  conduct  to  draw 
them  after  Him.  There  is  -something  excellent  in  the 
quaint  saying  of  one  of  the  most  heavenly-minded  of 
men  : — "  If  I  ever  come  to  heaven,  I  may  very  likely  see 
three  wonders  there :  the  first,  that  I  shall  miss  many 
persons  whom  I  expected  to  meet ;  the  second,  that  I 
shall  meet  tliere  many  I  never  expected  to  see ;  the 
third,  and  the  greatest  wonder  of  all,  that  I  shall  be 
there  myself"  But,  after  all,  this  doctrine  is  not  one 
that  we  can  use  to  the  best  advantage  for  other  men.  It 
searches,  it  warns,  it  ought  to  purify  and  quicken  our- 
selves. For,  construct  whatever  other  theory  of  immor- 
tality we  may,  so  far  as  we  look  to  revelation  for  our 
guide,  and  to  Him  who  alone  brings  life  and  immortality 
to  light,  we  have  no  glimpse  or  ray  of  light  on  any  other 


WHAT   IS    HEAVEN  ?  319 

heaven  than  that  which  is  created  for  us  by  the  Living 
and  Risen  Redeemer  of  our  souls,  opened  by  His  cross, 
and  entered  through  repentance  and  faith  toward  Him. 

A  few  more  holy  Easter-times  at  most ;  a  few  more 
offerings  of  this  struggling  and  broken  worship,  miugled 
with  mourning, — "  missing  some  one  at  a  sacrament "  ; 
a  few  more  strains  of  that 

** sad  mysterious  music, 


Wailing  through  the  woods  and  on  the  shore, 
Burdened  with  a  grand  majestic  secret 
That  keeps  sweeping  from  us  evermore  " ; 

a  few  more  bright  or  clouded  sunsets  fading  along  the 
western  walls  of  our  earthly  sanctuary,  and  then  the 
curtains  will  be  lifted  up.  Then  no  longer  as  through  a 
glass  darkly,  but  face  to  face;  then  the  vision  of  the 
Countenance  which  no  eye  hiath  seen, — and  the  new  song 
before  the  throne,  that  no  ear  hath  heard  !  We  know 
not  what  we  shall  be,  but  we  shall  be  with  Him,  and  we 
shall  see  Him  as  He  is  ! 

**  Oh  the  rest  forever,  and  the  rapture  I 
Oh  the  hand  that  wipes  the  tears  away  I 
Oh  the  golden  homes  beyond  the  sunset, 
And  the  hope  that  watches  o'er  the  clay  I" 


WHY  THERE  WILL  BE  NO  MOEE  SEA. 

Third  Sunday  after  Easter. 

**  And  I  saw  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth;  .  .  .  and  there  was 
no  more  sea." — Revelation  xxi.  1. 

There  is  this  remarkable  respecting  the  N^ew  Testa- 
ment disclosures  of  the  future  life : — for  everything  that 
approaches  definite  details  of  description,  we  have  to 
depend  on  the  language  not  of  our  Lord  himself  but  of 
His  apostles.  In  the  commdnications  of  both  there  is  a 
conspicuous  reserve  ;  but  it  is  most  striking  in  Him  who 
is  Himself  the  resurrection  and  the  life.  There  is  no  ful- 
ness of  explanation.  The  picture  of  the  Revelation  is 
drawn  large  ;  there  is  no  filling  up  of  the  severe,  sparing 
outline.  However  much  there  is  for  faith,  there  is 
nothing  for  curiosity ;  and  a  great  part  of  the  message 
to  faith  is  that  we  must  wait. 

This  silence  is  the  more  significant  when  we  connect  it 
with  two  facts :  First,  the  whole  historj^  of  human  thought 
shows  that  there  is  an  almost  irresistible  fascination  in 
that  invisible  country,  lying  as  it  does  directly  on  the  patli 
before  us,  and  closely  related  to  the  life  we  are  living 
now;  and  this  interest  has  always  been  found  to  be 
lively,  in  proportion  as  men's  minds  were  active  ;  second, 
we  are  urged  up  to  these  inquiries  not  only  by  the  in- 
tellectual problems  that  meet  us  but  by  the  homely 
troubles  of  the  common  heart ;   we  have  to  deal  all  the 


WHY   THERE   WILL   BE   NO   MOKE   SEA.  321 

while  with  a  world  where  the  graves  of  the  dead  occupy 
a  large  space  in  our  scenery ;  where  the  alarm-bells  of 
disease  are  ringing  in  some  of  our  chambers  every  night ; 
where  memorials  of  the  departed,  who  are  felt  to  be 
only  departed,  not  annihilated,  color  the  atmosphere  and 
change  the  look  of  almost  every  house,  and  where, 
around  the  death  of  more  than  half  of  those  who  die, 
there  hangs  a  sad  sense  of  incompleteness,  capacities  not 
yet  developed,  powers  not  yet  used,  aspirations  not 
realized,  and  a  work  not  done.  Nevertheless,  Revela- 
tion does, lay  a  solemn  stress  on  the  fact  itself  of  im- 
mortality. It  creates  a  conviction  in  every  Christian 
that  he  ought  to  pass  through  his  whole  course  here  with 
the  eyes  of  his  faith  and  hope  turned  forward, — a  puri- 
fying influence  from  his  future  home  perpetually  breath- 
ing upon  him : — what  St.  Paul  calls  "  the  powers  of 
the  world  to  come." 

The  farther  we  go  on,  however,  in  the  examination 
of  the  matter,  as  it  lies  in  the  Scriptures,  the  better  sat- 
isfied we  shall  be  that  the  reserve  spoken  of  has  good 
reasons.  The  scantiness  of  information  is  itself  a  kind 
of  instruction.  "We  find  that  whatever  is  essential  to 
the  heginnings  of  a  heavenly  state  is  suificiently  dis- 
closed :  and  as  we  have  nothing  to  do  here  with  any- 
thing else  hut  the  beginnings,  it  becomes  plainer  and 
plainer  that  we  are  under  the  safe  leading  of  a  strong 
Hand, — which  is  a  master  of  all  the  mystery,  and  will  be 
able  to  lift  the  veil  as  soon  as  we  can  bear  the  light  that 
springs  and  flames  behind  it.  In  other  words,  in  the 
New  Testament,  from  Matthew  to  Revelation,  just  as  in 
the  steps  of  our  own  growing  experience,  the  increase 
of  information  is  gradual. 

Look,  for  example,  at  the  distinction,  just  alluded  to, 
between  the  teachings  of  the  Saviour  himself  on  this 


322  WHY    THERE   WILL    BE   NO   MORE   SEA. 

subject  and  the  comparatively  enlarged  expressions  of 
His  apostles.  Observe  that  there  is  an  order,  a  very 
striking  and  beautiful  order,  in  the  opening  of  the  Truth. 
In  the  words  of  Christ,  as  they  are  written  down  by  the 
four  evangelists,  only  the  fewest  features  of  the  great 
resurrection  doctrine  are  unfolded.  They  can  be  men- 
tioned in  a  moment.  One  of  these  is  that  the  faithful 
will  form  groups  of  a  single  family,  and  yet  be  distrib- 
uted into  companies ;  because,  Christ  says,  it  is  all  our 
"  Father's  house,"  and  yet  4:here  are  many  "  mansions  " 
in  it ;  this  introduces  the  animating  idea  of  variety  in 
unitj^,  with  personal  characteristics,  yet  a  single  socie- 
ty ; — that  same  grand  result  of  diversity  of  operation 
within  one  all-including  bond  of  law  which  science  has 
been  groping  after  so  long,  and  which  the  ablest  scien- 
tific men  now  begin  to  think  they  can  catch  glimpses  of, 
as  a  single  Force,  in  the  kingdoms  of  nature.  That 
recognitions  will  take  place  among  those  who  have  been 
spiritually  and  truly  united  here  follows  from  every 
scriptural  principle  and  intimation.  But  the  one  great 
fact  on  which  all  these  others  are  made  to  depend, — that 
around  which  they  are  all  ranged,  and  out  of  which  they 
all  grow,  is  that  of  our  Easter-tide  doctrine,  that  every 
Christian  has  his  eternal  and  blessed  life  directly  from 
his  having  been  spiritually  united  with  Christ  before. 
This  is  the  intense  personality  of  His  power,  as  the  Head 
and  Fountain  of  the  whole  spiritual  creation.  It  will 
not  be  a  pantheistic  absorption  of  finite  spirits  in  the 
Infinite: — the  personality  of  every  soul  will  be  as 
sacredly  kept  and  guarded  as  that  of  the  Eedeemer 
himself;  for  every  one  is  precious  in  Ilis  sight.  If  I, 
the  Good  Shepherd,  He  says,  "know  my  sheep,"  "I 
am  known  of  Mine."  It  is  a  reciprocal  intercouse,  a 
seeing  and  being  seen,  a  giving  and  receiving,  a  rejoicing 


WHY   THERE   WILL   BE   NO   MORE   SEA.  323 

of  each  with  each.  And  yet  such  is  the  fulness  and  per- 
fection of  that  divine  life  in  Him,  that  all  the  immeasur- 
able sphere,  and  all  the  countless  differences  of  heavenly 
occupation,  will  take  their  quality  of  blessedness,  and 
their  peculiar  light,  from  the  glorious  presence  of  Him 
by  whose  love  each  soul  has  been  counted  worthy  to  be 
saved,  and  is  permitted  to  be  there. 

To  draw  out  the  more  particular  consequences  com- 
prehended in  that  truth,  and  to  unfold  its  subordinate 
aspects,  must  be  left  to  the  twelve  apostles,  after  the 
actual  rising  of  Christ  should  have  secured  the  doctrine 
in  their  minds. 

We  pass  on  to  their  testimony,  and  we  see  the  same 
gradual  order,  only  opening  a  little  further.  First  these 
apostolic  witnesses,  as  in  the  Acts,  content  themselves 
with  preaching,  wherever  they  can  get  a  hearing,  three 
GREAT  realities  that  are  to  convert  the  world  and 
regenerate  the  race,  i.  e.,  Christ  the  Living  Man ;  Christ 
the  One  Sacrifice  for  sin,  and  Christ  the  Divine  Head  of 
a  spiritual  and  everlasting  kingdom,  in  which  all  live  from 
Him.  In  their  busy  life  of  incessant  activity  and  travel, 
proclaiming  this  Gospel  and  planting  the  Church  from 
Jerusalem  to  Spain,  there  was  room  only  for  this,  with 
practical  exhortations  to  repentance  and  faith, — illus- 
trated as  it  all  was  with  those  tranquil  martyrdoms  where 
they  went  cheerfully  to  death,  not  careful  themselves 
about  the  lesser  features  of  the  glory  beyond,  but  count- 
ing it  enough  to  look  up  and  see  their  Master,  as  He  had 
foretold,  waiting  to  receive  them  to  Himself. 

The  next  stage  we  reach  in  their  epistles.  As  they  sat 
in  prison  cells  and  thought  out  the  sublime  system  of 
this  "  Faith"  which  they  were  delivering  once  for  all  to 
the  saints,  or  as  they  saw  the  need  of  applying  its  funda- 
mental principles  to  the  agitated  minds  and  practical 


324  WHY   THERE   WILL   BE   NO   MORE   SEA. 

necessities  of  the  clinrclies  thej  gathered,  they  were 
able,  through  the  Spirit's  illuminatioiij  to  offer  some  addi- 
tional light  on  the  questions  that  were  sure  to  arise  re- 
specting the  Christian  immortality.  So  we  find  St.  Paul 
writing  to  the  Corinthians — who  had  thinkers  among 
them — as  in  last  Sunday's  evening  lesson,  more  especially 
of  the  nature  of  the  spiritual  body,  and  its  analogies  to 
the  terrestrial  or  fleshly  body,  telling  them  how  we  are  to 
be  not  unclothed  biit  clothed  upon,  indicating  somewhat 
the  succession  of  events  in  the  second  coming  and  the 
general  resurrection,  and  giving  also  to  the  Church,  to 
kindle  its  hojpe  through  all  ages,  some  magnificent 
glimpses  of  the  heavenly  worship^  where  there  will  be 
"  no  temple,"  only  because  the  whole  new  heaven  and 
new  earth  are  one  open  temple,  where  the  liturgies  of 
the  unnumbered  multitude  are  as  the  voice  of  many 
waters,  and  the  praise  is  unceasing. 

Later  still,  however,  just  as  the  high  strain  of  inspira- 
tion is  about  concluding,  St.  John,  standing  last  of  the 
twelve  in  this  life,  is  sufiered  to  raise  the  curtain  of  that 
which  is  to  come  a  little  further.  "What  he  reports, 
to  be  sure,  is  not  all  perfectly  plain,  at  least  to  any  eyes 
that  have  searched  it  hitherto ;  how  could  we,  short- 
sighted scliolars,  and  reading  at  best  through  a  hazy  and 
clouded  air,  be  foolish  enough  to  expect  it  would  be  ?  It 
is  enough  that  mysteries  are  set  partly  open  there  which 
have  stimulated  the  adoring  wonder,  and  have  fed  the 
faith,  too,  of  all  the  generations  since  the  beloved  disciple 
fell  asleep.  In  this  last  Book  of  the  Bible,  the  sketches 
of  the  celestial  country  are  made  more  clear ;  we  see  a 
likeness  there  to  what  is  brightest  and  best  in  our  familiar 
landscapes  here,  which  makes  it  seem  more  like  a  home 
that  we  should  be  glad  to  move  into  and  take  comfort 
in ;  the  ranks  of  the  innumerable  congregation  become 


WHY   THERE   WILL   BE   NO   MOEE   SEA.  325 

more  distinct ;  the  anthems  seem  to  grow  louder  as  we 
listen  at  the  door  set  open ;  and  the  very  words  of  the 
*'  Thrice  holy"  of  the  great  Supper  are  sent  down  to  us, 
so  that  we  might  begin  to  use  them  around  our  earthly 
altars,  in  anticipation.  It  is  a  great  deal,  for  example, — 
considering  how  often  our  bodies  ache,  and  how  often 
we  have  to  watch  over  disease,  and  are  tired  out  with  our 
work  and  with  seeing  how  little  our  work  comes  to, — 
to  be  assured  expressly,  and  again  and  again,  that  there 
shall  be  there  none  of  the  torments  that  distress  us  in  this 
flesh ;  that  we  shall  hunger  no  more,  thirst  no  more, 
burn  with  no  fever-heats,  never  be  weary,  ache  with  no 
more  pain  ;  and  that  all  these  immortal  liberties  and 
enjoyments  shall  be  given  us,  in  Him,  freely,  as  fruits  of 
faith. 

Now,  it  is  among  these  most  exhilarating  and  consol- 
ing prospects  that  we  come  to  the  singular  expression 
of  the  text.  St.  John  is  faithfully  reporting  his  vision ; 
he  tells,  in  the  historic  tense,  what  he  had  seen  and 
heard  ;  there  could  be  no  illusion  about  it.  "  7,  John^ 
sawP  Eyco  Icoavvq^  eldou  raora.  The  first  heaven 
and  the  first  earth  had  passed  away.  A  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth, — not  a  new  "heaven"  merely,  but  a 
new  earth  as  well, — have  taken  their  place ; — this  must 
])e  to  prove  to  us  how  close  and  real  the  connection  is 
between  this  life  we  are  living  now  with  that  which  is 
to  come  after.  But  there  is  one  unexplained  change. 
One  of  the  features  of  these  earthly  landscapes, — one  of 
the  most  majestic  and  mysterious  of  them, — has  van- 
ished.    "  There  was  no  more  sea." 

Where  all  the  declarations  of  the  Bible  are  so  brief  and 
yet  so  significant,  we  cannot  afford  to  let  one  of  them 
slip  by,  as  if  it  were  a  mere  superfluous  metaphor. 
There  must  have  been,  to  this  inspired  and  eagle-eyed 


326  WHY   THERE   WILL    BE   NO   MORE   SEA. 

evangelist,  some  special  and  some  religions  meaning  in 
this  absence  of  the  sea. 

I  recall,  as  one  clew  to  that  meaning,  the  situation 
where  St.  John  saw  the  vision  and  wrote  this  Apoca- 
lypse. As  he  grew  old  in  his  episcopate  at  Ephesus, 
surviving  all  his  fellow-witnesses  and  companions, — now 
sixty  years  after  the  resurrection, — the  fury  of  perse- 
cution under  the  Emperor  Domitian  banished  him 
from  his  ministry,  along  with  many  noble  men  and  one 
consul  of  the  empire,  and  drove  him  into  exile.  The 
prison-hoitse  that  was  found  for  him  was  a  sterile,  rocky, 
island  in  the  Aegean,  or  Greek  Archipelago,  and  his 
prison-wall  was  the  '^  sea."  There  is  an  old  Latin  hymn 
th:it  says : 

"Through  Rome,  infuriate  city, 
From  Caesar's  judgment  chair, 
They  drag  Christ's  loved  disciple, 

The  saint  with  silver  hair. 
To  desert  islands  banished, 

With  God  the  exile  dwells, 
And  sees  the  future  glory 
His  mystic  writing  tells." 

Travellers  point  out  a  wild  cave  or  grotto,  on  the  south- 
ern side,  midway  up  the  desolate  promontory,  looking 
out  over  the  waters  of  the  Mediterranean,  near  enough 
to  catch  the  roar  and  beat  of  tlieir  waves  against  the 
cliffs  at  the  foot.  It  is  not  strange  that  tradition  after- 
wards associated  John's  figure  with  the  eagles.  Here 
he  received  the  "  Revelation."  He  saw  and  heard  such 
things  as  were  never  given  to  man,  before  or  since,  to 
see,  or  to  hear,  or  to  utter.  He  was  in  the  Spirit  on  the 
Lord's-day.  The  Master  whom  he  had  seen  standing 
by  the  Lake  of  Galilee  in  the  day-dawn  after  the  resur- 
rection. His  countenance  now  as  the  sun  shining  in  His 
strength,  with  the  same  voice  that  had  comfortingly  said, 


WHY    THEKE    WILL   BE   NO   MORE    SEA.  327 

"  Fear  not,"  stands  once  more  before  Him.  He  is  in  the 
midst  of  tlie  seven  golden  lamps,  and  in  His  hand,  an 
emblem  of  the  Churches,  the  cluster  of  those  seven  stars 
of  the  "Pleiades,"  to  which  the  Almighty  pointed  the 
patriarch  as  the  symbol  of  His  everlasting  strength, 
among  which  astronomy  has  since  found  the  one  central 
star  around  which  the  same  Hand  swings  all  the  stars  and 
suns  in  the  universe.  "I,  John,  who  also  am  your 
brother,  and  companion  in  tribulation,  and  in  the  king- 
dom and  patience  of  Jesus  Christ,  was  in  the  isle  that  is 
called  Patmos,  for  the  word  of  God,  and  for  the  testi- 
mony of  Jesus  Christ.  And  I  heard  behind  me  a  great 
voice,  as  of  a  trumpet,  saying,  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega, 
the  First  and  the  Last,  and  what  thou  seest,  write  in 
a  book." 

]^ow  in  that  mingling  of  divine  and  human  together 
which  runs  through  the  Bible,  nearly  every  separate  writ- 
ing in  it  is  stamped  with  the  geography  where  it  was 
produced.  And  so  the  imagery  of  St.  John,  which 
portrays  the  realities  of  the  unseen  world,  is  not  less 
true  to  those  realities  because  its  features  are  taken 
from  around  that  mountain  of  stone,  sea-girt  and  solitary. 

St.  John  writes  of  the  blessed  life  of  the  new  creation, 
where  holy  souls  are  at  rest,  that  there  is  "  no  more  sea." 
What  was  the  sea,  then,  to  him, — what  is  it  everywhere, 
— that  he  should  choose  it  to  symbolize  something  that  is 
1^71-heavenly ; — something  that  is  to  be  done  away  with 
when  that  which  is  perfect  is  come  ?  The  sea  is  that  which 
sunders  man  from  man.  To  St.  John  himself,  as  I  said,  it 
was  a  prison-wall.  He  looked  out  across  it,  homesick,  to- 
wards the  eastern  line  of  coast  where  the  friends  he  loved, 
the  dwellings  of  Ephesus,  the  Churches  he  had  planted, 
waited  and  mourned  for  him.  Tliere  is  no  such  wall  of  sep- 
aration on  earth  as  the  sea.    It  divides  nation  from  nation, 


328  WHY   THERE   WILL    BE   NO    MOEE    SEA. 

as  well  as  land  from  laud.  Whatever  the  original  unity 
of  the  race,  it  breaks  that  unity  apart.  That  is  the  very 
epithet  that  a  Latin  poet  (Horace),  who  lived  just  before 
St.  John's  time,  applied  to  it, — the  "  dissociable  "  ocean. 
It  rolls  in  its  immense  barrier  between  kindred,  between 
friends,  and  no  longing  of  love  can  bridge  it.  Every 
voyager  across  it  is  practically  an  exile.  The  two  for- 
bidding, repellent  shores  cannot  be  drawn  together  by 
any  clamps.  If  you  stand  on  a  bluff  and  let  your  eyes 
rest  on  any  water  where  you  can  see  no  coast-line, 
one  of  the  first  things  in  your  mind  will  be  of  something 
beyond ;  something  you  cannot  reach.  So  long  as  the 
seas  intervene,  this  is  a  divided  world.  The  family  of 
souls  cannot  be  literally  one ; — the  universal  neighbor- 
hood and  brotherhood  at  which  the  Gospel  aims  cannot 
be  actually  represented,  till  the  first  earth  is  passed  away, 
and  there  is  no  more  sea. 

But  if  there  is  one  thought  that  lies  nearer  the  heart  of 
the  Gospel  than  any  other,  it  is  that  of  the  perfect  oneness, 
or  flowing  together,  and  living  together,  of  the  nations 
and  souls  of  men.  Prophets  and  evangelists  promise,  in 
the  new  Christian  age,  a  reconcili-ation  of  what  was 
estranged, — the  absolute  extinguishment  of  all  the  causes 
of  division.  The  blessed  bond  of  that  harmony  began, 
in  fact,  to  be  woven  when  Christ  was  born,  and  the 
angels  predicted  peace  at  His  coming,  at  Bethlehem. 

The  old  political  constitutions  were  framed  on  the 
idea  of  exclusive  rights.  In  Babylon  and  Persia  and 
the  heathen  empires  of  the  West,  no  matter  whether 
Nimrod,  or  Tamerlane,  or  Xerxes,  or  Alexander,  or 
Caesar  was  on  the  throne,  selfish  power  was  always  king, 
and  hate  always  prime  minister.  This  very  Domitian 
hunted  the  Christians  through  his  empire,  from  jealousy 
of  their  rising  commonwealth.    He  charged  the  two  sons 


WHY   THERE   WILL    BE    NO   MORE    SEA.  329 

of  St.  Jude  with  plotting  to  restore  tlie  old  line  of 
David.  They  told  him  they  were  poor,  hard-working 
men,  and  held  up  their  hands,  rough  and  black  with  the 
spade  and  soil.  "  What,  then,  is  this  kingdom  ? "  asked 
the  emperor.  They  answered,  according  to  the  annals, 
in  the  words  of  our  text : — "  It  is  a  kingdom  far  away. 
We  look  not  for  it  till  the  world  is  at  an  end,  and  our 
King  Cometh  to  make  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth." 
With  Christ  every  human  government  was  to  come 
under  a  new  law, — disinterested  charity.  Instead  of 
military  aggressions  there  were  to  be  missions  of  the 
Cross ;  for  hostilities,  hands  of  help  reached  out ;  for 
battles,  sacraments.  One  was  a  civilization  of  conquest ; 
the  other  of  sacrifice. 

We  know  well  enough  how  slowly  the  consummation 
has  advanced  against  wars,  crusades,  caste,  slavery,  the 
complicated  injustices  and  wrongs  of  a  selfish  society ! 
Hereafter  it  will  not  be  so.  Hatreds,  suspicions,  op- 
pressions, cruelties,  quarrels,  are  all  to  be  swept  away. 
Men  will  not  crowd  each  other  back  from  the  places  of 
privilege.  Women  will  not  envy  each  other  beauty  or 
love.  Scholars  will  not  rob  each  other's  reputations. 
The  tongue  will  stop  its  poisonous,  garrulous  business  of 
detraction.  There  will  be  no  "  classes  "  in  the  celestial 
society,  except  such  as  move  on  agreeing  and  merciful 
errands  about  a  common  centre,  obeying  one  impulse 
of  love.  The  spirit  of  Christ's  mediation  shall  be  the 
reigning  force.  There  shall  be  one  fold  under  one  Shep- 
herd. All  shall  be  like  Christ,'  for  they  shall  behold 
Ilim  as  He  is;  and  sympathy  Avill  beget  resemblance. 
There  shall  be  no  more  separating  sea.  Another  heaven ; 
another  earth  ;  but  "  no  more  sea  "  ! 

So  much  for  the  society  at  large.  Think,  too,  of  the 
heavenly  comfort  it  must  bring  to  private  hearts  to  have 


330  WHY   THERE   WILL    BE   NO   MOEE    SEA. 

all  the  sorrows  of  personal  separations  ended.  We  know 
liow  mncli  of  the  pain  of  affection,  whose  first  instinct 
is  to  bring  hearts  that  are  alike  together,  proceeds  from 
parting.  In  the  perfect  life  to  come,  the  pure  and  good, 
being  always  with  Christ,  will  always  be  consciously 
and  truly  together.  They  "go  no  more  out."  To 
those  of  us  that  travel  a  great  deal,  or  take  leave  very 
often  of  those  we  love,  there  is  a  special  meaning  in 
that  phrase.  We  know  nothing,  to  be  sure,  of  the 
modes  of  movement  or  the  means  of  intercourse  there ; 
but  we  know  there  can  be  none  of  those  partings  that 
have  sorrow  in  them,  no  sad  farewells,  no  constrained, 
untimely,  and  unwilling  absence.  A  sick  mother  will 
not  wait  in  agony  on  one  side  of  an  ocean  for  news  from 
the  bed  of  her  dying  child  on  the  other.  There  will  be 
no  empty  rooms  that  feel  empty,  or  deserted  hearts. 
There  will  be  no  melancholy  embarkations,  no  looking 
out  after  receding  sails,  no  watching  for  the  last  breath. 
Communion,  fellowship,  love,  the  presence  of  the  loved, 
will  be  perpetual.  There  will  be  no  more  dividing  sea. 
There  is  a  second  character  of  the  sea  which  probably 
likewise  suggested  it  to  St.  John,  for  Christian  comfort, 
as  an  image  of  what  is  of  the  earth  earthy,  and  must 
therefore  pass  away  before  the  coming  in  of  an  ever- 
lasting satisfaction.  The  ocean  is  all  a  field  of  nothing 
but  barrenness.  Those  wide  spaces  of  water,  inter- 
posed between  the  lands,  two  thirds  of  the  earth's  acres, 
are  bitter  and  fruitless.  I^othing  green  or  sweet  or 
nourishing  grows  on  them.  They  are  literally  what 
poetry  calls  them, — a  "  waste."  IS^obody  makes  a  home 
on  that  restless,  fluctuating  floor.  The  sailor  is  a  cease- 
less fugitive.  I^othing  settles  or  abides  on  that  restless 
breast.  All  the  life  it  ever  sees  or  supports  is  a  transi- 
tional, passing  life, — moving  from  one  tarrying-place  or 


WHY   THERE   WILL   BE   NO   MORE   SEA.  331 

coast  to  another.  What  an  image  it  is  of  the  fickle 
and  transient  elements  of  this  world  that  now  is,  com- 
pared with  tlie  fixedness  and  stability  and  blooming  life 
of  that  which  Christ  has  opened ! 

More  than  this ;  there  is  a  key  to  this  second  part  of 
the  meaning  of  the  text  in  the  closing  passage  of  the 
chapter  that  goes  just  before.  St.  John  has  there  been 
representing  the  last  judgment :  "  I  saw  the  dead,"  he 
writes,  "  small  and  great,  stand  before  God ;  and  the 
books  were  opened,  and  another  book  was  opened,  which 
is  the  book  of  life,  and  the  dead  were  judged  out  of 
those  things  which  were  written  in  the  books,  according 
to  their  works.  And  the  sea  gave  up  the  dead  which 
were  in  it."  The  sea  is  a  great  graveyard.  It  is  the 
home  of  the  drowned  and  buried  that  it  has  swallowed 
up  by  thousands.  One  of  its  bravest  vessels  grinds  against 
a  rock  in  the  night,  and  instantly  it  becomes  a  cofiin,  sink- 
ing six  hundred  bodies, — and  two  nations  are  full  of  fright 
and  mourning.  And  it  never  allows  affection  to  set  up  a 
sign  where  the  dead  go  down.  There  is  no  harvest  from 
it,  except  the  harvest  of  the  resurrection.  But  then,  fol- 
lowing this  scene  of  the  judgment  is  the  new  creation, 
and  when  the  evangelist  comes  just  after  to  speak 
of  that,  his  mind  goes  back  to  the  sepulchral  sea.  And 
lo !  it  is  gone  forever.  There  is  no  place  in  that  uni- 
verse of  trustful  joy  for  the  hungry,  insatiable,  treacher- 
ous waters.  "  Old  Ocean's  gray  and  melancholy  waste" 
will  not  be  found  around  the  "  continent  of  living 
green."  In  other  words,  dropping  the  figure,  that  new 
world — the  Christian  home — is  all  a  dwelling-place  of  life 
—life  everywhere ;  life  without  sleep ;  life  forever.  Deso- 
lations and  destructions  are  come  to  a  perpetual  end.  If 
there  is  any  appearance  of  the  sea  at  all  in  that  Apoca- 
lyptic imagery,  it  is  the  "  sea  of  glass,"  on  which  the 


332  WHY   THERE   WILL    BE    NO    MOKE    SEA. 

redeemed  stand  with  their  harps.  Everything  there  must 
be  as  useful  as  it  is  beautiful,  and  as  fruitful  as  it  is  fair. 
You  may  say  there  is  a  wild  and  wondrous  beauty  about 
the  ocean ;  and  no  doubt  in  this  material  world  it  has 
its  uses ;  but  neither  the  Gospel  in  this  world  nor  the 
evangelic  descriptions  of  the  next  recognize  any  beauty 
that  is  not  the  source  of  peace,  or  life,  or  benefaction. 
Heathen  beauty,  Greek  beauty,  cold,  restless,  faithless 
intellectual  beauty,  must  be  baptized  into  the  warm 
"  spirit  of  life  "  in  Christ  Jesus,  or  there  is  no  room  for 
it  in  the  heaven  Christ  opens. 

**  Here  below,  imaginations  quivering 

Through  our  human  spirits  like  the  wind, 
Thoughts  that  toss  like  waves  about  the  woodland, 

Hopes  like  sea-birds  flashed  across  the  mind. 
Up  above,  the  host  no  man  can  number 

In  white  robes,  a  palm  in  every  hand. 
Each  some  work  sublime  forever  working 

In  the  spacious  traits  of  that  great  land. 
Down  below,  the  Church,  to  whose  poor  window 

Glory  by  autumnal  leaves  is  lent. 
And  a  knot  of  worshippers,  in  mourning. 

Missing  some  one  at  the  sacrament. 
Up  above,  the  shout  of  hallelujah. 

And  without  the  sacramental  mist, 
Wrapt  all  round  us  like  a  sunlit  halo 

The  great  vision  of  the  face  of  Christ." 

Brethren,  we  must  endeavor  not  to  let  the  poetic 
dress  of  the  doctrine  blind  us  to  its  practical  solemnity 
and  spiritual  power.  But  we  do  discover,  under  the 
image  which  the  Spirit  of  God  suggested  to  the  seer  at 
Patmos,  two  of  the  principal  characteristics  of  that 
spiritual  world  where  all  of  us,  who  are  joined  by  faith 
to  Christ,  will  very  soon  be  going.  It  will  be  a  world 
of  undivided  spiritual  fellowship,  and  it  will  be  a  world 
of  living  and  fruitful  action.     In  still  simpler  and  more 


WHY   THEKE    WILL    BE   NO    MORE   SEA.  333 

comprehensive  words,  it  will  be  a  world  of  love,  and  a 
world  of  life.  Botli  are  intimated  in  tlie  prophecy  that 
there  will  be  no  more  sea, — no  cruel  sea  or  barren  sea, 
no  sea  to  divide  or  sea  to  destroy. 

I  spoke  of  this  prediction  as  having  a  practical  effect. 
The  best  thoughts  we  can  have  about  the  future  life  are 
thoughts  that  make  us  better  men  now, — more  fit  to  live 
under  the  eye  of  God,  and  in  daily  intercourse  with  our 
neighbors,  just  where  we  are, — kinder  and  purer  at 
home,  more  just  and  honorable  in  business,  more  rever- 
ent and  humble  in  prayer,  njore  charitable  in  our  judg- 
ments of  each  other.  The  metaphors  and  poetry  even 
of  an  evangelist  will  amount  to  nothing,  if  we  do  not 
come  to  this.  Unless  we  are  very  thoughtless  indeed, 
there  cannot  fail  to  be  a  strong  and  salutary  influence 
breathing  on  us  continually  by  remembering  this  : — that 
we  are  so  near,  one  day's  march  nearer  every  night,  to  a 
world  that  is  all  love  and  all  life, — without  selfishness  and 
without  death  ; — and  that  world  eternal.  The  prospect 
itself,  if  we  realized  it,  would  shed  some  new  sanctity, 
it  seems  to  me,  over  the  life  we  are  living.  It  would  be 
more  quickening  and  more  sanctifying  than  any  sermon. 

But  something  more  than  this  is  also  true.  Every- 
thing that  will  belong  to  our  Christian  state  hereafter 
has  its  root  and  its  beginning  in  our  convictions  and  our 
conscience,  our  affections  and  our  habits,  here.  Your 
individual  interest  in  this  subject,  and  in  all  that  can  be 
said  about  it,  depends  on  how  much  of  the  germ  and 
sentiment  of  the  heavenly  service  is  in  you  already. 
Heaven  will  be  only  the  outgrowth  and  completing  of  a 
heavenly  character  formed  on  earth.  No  one  of  us  can 
plant  the  tree  of  life  after  he  dies. 

Property,  business,  houses,  dress,  and  furniture, — the 
banks,  and  the  warehouses,  and  the  dividends, — they  all 


334  WHY   THERE   WILL   BE    NO   MORE   SEA. 

seem  strong  enough,  and  half  satisfying, — so  long  as  there 
is  nothing  to  take  our  minds  below  the  surface.  But  there 
comes  to  us,  one  by  one,  a  breaking  up.  God  sends  it, 
because  He  loves  us.  A  sickness,  a  death,  a  failure,  a 
broken  heart  or  broken  hope,  shakes  them  all  to  pieces ; 
and  all  at  once  the  world  feels  hollow.  Have  you  any 
hold,  then,  on  another  inheritance  ?  What  is  that  hold  ? 
Is  there  One  stronger  than  the  sea  ?  The  Son  of  God  has 
walked  in  victory  upon  it.  By  Him  we  can  conquer  the 
bitterness : — for  love  is  of  God,  and  he  that  loveth  is 
born  of  God,  and  knoweth  God,  and  overcometh  the 
world.  By  Him  we  can  get  the  better  of  the  unfruitful- 
ness: — "Herein  is  My  Father  glorified,  that  ye  bear 
much  fruit."  "  The  branch  cannot  bear  fruit  of  itself, 
except  it  abide  in  the  vine ;  no  more  can  ye,  except  ye 
abide  in  Me."  "  And  even  now,  being  made  free  from 
sin,  ye  have  your  frait  unto  holiness,  and  the  end  ever- 
lasting life." 


ALONE  AT  ATHEl^S. 

Fourth  Sunday  after  Easter, 

**  Wherefore  ...  we  thought  it  good  to  be  left  at  Athens  alone." 
— I  Theasalonicma  iii.  1. 

St.  Paul  is  speaking  of  himself  personally.  What  he 
says  here,  in  the  evening  lesson  for  this  day,  is  that  he 
puts  upon  himself  the  sacrilice  of  solitude  in  a  strange 
city,  simply  because  it  comes  in  the  line  of  his  duty  to 
do  so,  as  a  preacher  and  a  missionary  of  Christ  to  men. 
To  his  tastes  other  appointments  would  be  more  agree- 
able. Some  familiar  place  would  suit  better  his  passion- 
ate longing  for  sympathy.  He  is  a  scholar,  and  would 
prefer  retirement.  He  is  the  scarred  and  worn  hero  of 
many  hard  battles,  and  would  like  to  rest  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  some  peaceful  household  of  Faith.  That  he 
cannot  do  and  be  faithful ;  and  this,  with  any  honest  soul, 
settles  the  question.  Having  formerly  planted  a  Church 
at  Thessalonica,  a  post  of  importance  as  lying  on  the 
great  Koman  road  to  the  East,  and  a  Macedonian  sea- 
port, he  had  afterwards  journeyed  westward,  plunging, 
with  the  cross  in  his  hand,  into  pagan  Europe.  Arriving 
at  Athens,  busy  as  he  is,  he  remembers  the  affectionate 
little  band  he  had  left  behind.  So  cordial  is  his  feeling 
for  them,  that  he  determines  to  part  with  his  only  com- 
panion, Timothy,  who  is  like  a  son  to  him,  and  send  him 
back   to  "  establish "  them ;    and   with  him  goes  this 


336  ALONE   AT   ATHENS. 

to  aching  despatcli :  "  l^ow  we  live  if  ye  stand  fast  in  the 
Lord."  To  that  warm  fireside-circle  of  spiritual  life 
this  strong  man's  heart  looks  back  across  the  separating 
sea,  homesick,  no  doubt,  but  not  a  whit  the  weaker  or 
less  brave  in  God's  work  for  that. 

Turn  a  moment  from  that  bright  picture  of  primitive 
Church-fellowship  in  Asia  to  St.  Paul's  loneliness  at  Ath- 
ens. Launching  on  his  missionary  expedition  from  the 
East,  and  sailing  up  among  the  islands  of  the  Thessalian 
Archipelago,  he  had  brought  the  new  truth,  to  proclaim 
it  in  this  capital  of  men's  intellectual  life.  Li  his  per- 
son, on  his  landing  at  the  Piraeus,  the  morning  light  of  the 
new  age  rose  on  a  second  continent.  Yet  everything  about 
him  was  appallingly  bleak,  every  face  was  unfriendly. 
Any  courage  less  valiant  than  that  of  the  Son  of  God 
in  his  heart  must  have  quailed  before  the  overpowering 
splendor  and  despotism  of  the  old  heathenism,  in  the 
very  stronghold  of  its  dominion.  Athens  was  the  brain 
of  the  world.  The  apostle  had  come  to  it,  as  fearless  of 
its  sophistries  and  arrogance  as  he  had  been  of  the 
swords  and  dungeons  of  Syria.  He  had  come  to  say : 
"You  classic  Greeks,  artists,  poets,  philosophers,  are 
seeking  after  wisdom ;  but  the  foolishness  of  God  is 
wiser  than  the  wisest  of  you.  One  God  made  you ;  one 
Saviour  died  for  you.  Your  Olympus  is  a  fiction.  I 
preach  unto  you  Christ,  and  Him  crucified,  the  wisdom 
of  God  and  the  power  of  God ;  your  Saviour,  if  you  will 
be  saved." 

Without  some  common  interests,  cities  are  wilder- 
nesses, and  society  is  the  saddest  of  solitudes.  From  the 
moment  St.  Paul's  feet  touched  the  pier  at  the  lower  end 
of  the  town,  the  monuments  of  the  dominant  mythology 
began  to  lift  themselves  forbiddingly  before  him,  to 
make  him  feel  himself  "  alone."     His  own  heart  burning 


ALONE    AT   ATHENS.  337 

with  loyal  love  for  tlie  Shepherd  of  Galilee  and  Lamb  of 
Calvary,  the  first  objects  that  greet  him,  as  he  passes,  a 
stranger,  up  the  principal  street,  are  the  statue  of  Nep- 
tune with  his  trident,  a  sensual  temple  of  the  god  of 
wine,  and  sculptured  images  of  Mercury  and  Minerva, 
Apollo  and  Jupiter,  with  all  the  flaunting  signals  of  an 
idolatry  rooted  in  the  prejudices  and  habits  of  centu- 
ries. Reaching  the  market-place,  his  sense  of  separation 
only  deepens  at  every  step.  The  buildings  are  memo- 
rials of  a  foreign  history.  Their  walls  are  covered  with 
paintings  that  celebrate  barbarous  exploits,  and  illustrate 
alien  manners.  Processions  of  disgusting  ceremonies 
meet  him  on  the  way.  If  he  looks  up,  figures  of  reli- 
gious falsehood  are  hung  out  along  the  carved  ledges 
and  balconies.  From  the  water-side,  all  the  way  up  to 
the  Acropolis,  the  city  is  one  vast  museum  of  unhallowed 
art,  of  an  unclean  civilization,  of  a  Christless  worship. 
If  he  turns  from  the  world  of  sight  to  the  world  of 
thought,  he  finds  the  schools  of  unbelieving  speculation. 
Porch  and  Academy,  Stoa  and  Gardens,  strong  in  great 
names  to  be  sure,  but  distracted  with  debate  between 
doubt  and  delusion,  and  full  of  eloquent  error.  Tlie 
most  that  he  could  hope  from  any  of  them  was  that, 
after  the  glorious  testimony  to  his  Master  at  Mars  Hill, 
they  would  set  him  down  as  a  fanatical  adventurer,  ad- 
vertising an  unheard  of  sect, — a  "  setter-forth  of  strange 
gods."  What  was  all  this  to  the  sorrowful,  earnest,  strait- 
ened spirit  which  was  there  in  the  form  of  a  worn  and  sun- 
burnt traveller  from  Tarsus,  secretly  so  absorbed  in  the 
power  of  a  holy  affection  for  a  Personage  executed  long 
ago  as  a  disturber  of  the  public  peace  in  the  distant  prov- 
ince of  Judaea,  that  he  could  say,  "  It  is  no  more  I 
that  live ;  I  have  no  life  of  my  own ;  Christ  liveth  in 
me  "  ?     The  round  of  festal  novelties,  the  decorations  of 

98 


338  ALONE  AT   ATHENS. 

Attic  taste,  the  splendid  learning,  the  subtle  wit,  the 
riches  and  refinements  of  a  proud  prosperity, — what 
would  they  all  be  to  one  whose  heart  was  in  the  unseen 
court  of  the  King  of  Kings,  and  who  was  willing  to  give 
his  body  to  be  burnt,  or  his  blood  to  bubble  for  the  One 
True  God  ?  Deeper  and  darker  his  solitude  grew. 
And  yet  even  there  he  could  send  away  from  his  side 
the  single  sympathizing  friend  that  had  followed  him ; 
he  could  banish  himself  into  a  completer  exile,  and  be 
utterly  "  alone  at  Athens,"  for  the  confirmation  and 
comforting's  sake  of  the  little  band  of  Christians  far  off 
at  Thessalonica. 

There  opens  out  of  this  casual  circumstance  a  matter 
of  general  concern  in  personal  religion. 

In  God's  appointments  for  us  there  are  two  kinds  of 
loneliness : — one  outward  and  physical,  the  other  a  lone- 
liness of  feeling,  conviction,  and  character.  Both  of 
them  have  important  connections  with  our  Christian 
education  and  moral  strength;  and  both  have  their 
dangers. 

1.  First,  the  providential  conditions  of  life  are  so 
settled  for  very  many  persons  that  they  have  much  less 
than  the  average  share  of  social  communication.  Some- 
times by  a  shrinking  turn  of  the  constitution,  or  by  shy- 
ness or  natural  reserve,  or  by  the  lack  of  that  magnetic 
quality  which  draws  up  sympathy  and  confidence  from 
others,  or  by  a  fatal  propensity  to  say  the  wrong  thing 
and  repel  instead  of  conciliating,  or  else  by  necessities 
of  residence  or  occupation,  they  are  cut  oif  from  society. 
There  is  also  a  solitude  of  temperament,  the  inmost 
heart  all  the  while  yearning  and  crying  for  companion- 
ship, and  yet  strangely  fettered,  held  back,  and  sealed 
up  in  a  dumb  secrecy,  which  the  will  cannot  find 
out  how  to  break  through.     There  is  a  solitude  of  pride, 


ALONE   AT   ATHENS.  330 

where  social  pleasures  and  advantages  are  voluntarily  but 
bitterly  given  up,  to  escape  making  an  appearance  in- 
ferior to  that  of  one's  class,  in  the  style  of  hospitality, 
dress,  or  equipage,  or  of  literary  culture  and  accomplish- 
ment. There  is  a  solitude  of  obligation,  created  by  the 
sheer  necessity  of  unceasing  toil,  by  filial  or  conjugal  or 
sisterly  devotion, — by  poverty  or  pity  imprisoning  both 
body  and  mind  alike.  And  there  is  a  solitude  of  bodily 
infirmity  or  sickness 

Among  the  perils  of  such  a  situation  to  Christian 
character  we  must  set  down  a  tendency  to  too  much  self- 
consideration.  A  continual  confinement  of  attention  to 
ourselves,  or  to  those  who  by  belonging  to  us  become 
only  a  slight  extension  of  self,  belittles  us.  The  soul 
takes  petty  proportions,  sees  with  a  narrow  vision,  and 
is  warped  to  one-sided  judgments.  Finding  nothing 
beyond  self  to  fasten  upon,  affection  settles  back  and 
stagnates  or  sours  in  the  breast,  till  mere  self-preser- 
vation becomes  the  end  of  living.  Religion,  though  her 
hand  is  on  the  invisible  world,  will  have  hard  work  to 
save  such  a  life  from  contempt.  It  has  been  the  snare 
of  all  anchorites  and  monks  and  nuns.  It  is  a  spirit 
directly  opposite  to  the  charity  and  cross  of  Christ. 

In  other  cases,  from  the  same  cause,  we  see  censorious- 
ness.  Rigid  standards  are  applied  to  other  people's 
motives  and  conduct.  Allowances  are  not  madQ  for  un- 
avoidable differences,  and  so,  again,  the  first  command- 
ment, of  love,  is  broken. 

Along  with  these  bigoted  and  intolerant  ways  of 
thinking  comes  envy,  a  morbid  estimate  of  your  neigh- 
bor's fortunes,  and  a  cynical  discouragement.  You 
have  never  had,  you  think,  your  fair  chance  in  the  world. 
Companions  that  started  with  you  at  school  have  gained 
brilliant  successes.     Past  the  invalid's  still  chamber,  out 


340  ALONE  AT   ATHENS. 

in  the  street,  the  children  of  health  and  wealth  are 
rolling  away  to  luxurious  gajety.  It  needs  a  singularly 
steady  faith  in  God's  impartiality  to  keep  down  your 
discontent.  So  Martha  felt  her  solitude  when  she  com- 
plained to  Christ, — "  Carest  Thou  not  that  my  sister  hath 
left  me  to  serve  alone  ? "  And  so  felt  Peter  when  he 
asked,  "  Lord,  and  what  shall  this  man  do  ? " — contrast- 
ing John's  brighter  lot  with  his  own  predicted  desolate 
martyrdom. 

Add  to  these  temptations  that  of  a  certain  unwhole- 
some daintiness  or  fastidiousness,  which  is  apt  to  arise 
from  constant  preoccupation  with  private  tastes,  and 
is  quite  unlike  the  rugged  readiness  for  Christian  ser- 
vice to  all  the  ugliest  forms  of  humanity,  in  the  good 
soldier  of  Jesus  Christ.  Grievances,  in  the  long  and 
gloomy  hours  of  retirement,  are  nursed  and  exagger- 
ated. Suspicions  grow  rank  and  poisonous.  The  hand 
is  withheld  from  many  a  useful  office,  and  the  tongue 
from  many  a  cordial  utterance.  Opportunities  for  Chris- 
tian benefaction  are  despairingly  thrown  away,  and  life 
is  miserably  bereft  of  its  true  spiritual  glory. 

2.  If  now  we  look  at  the  involuntary  and  moral 
loneliness,  we  shall  see  that  while  this  too  has  its  dan- 
gers, it  may  be  made  the  occasion,  as  it  was  with  St. 
Paul,  of  great  spiritual  gains  and  victories.  It  is  indeed 
almost  indispensable  that,  at  some  period  of  their  lives, 
souls  which  follow  Christ  should  be  stripped  of  the 
support  and  separated  from  the  countenance  of  com- 
pany, and  stand  morally  apart,  without  leaning  on 
human  arms  or  opinions  about  them;  without  popular 
honor ;  without  much  encouragement  or  sympathy,  this 
side  of  heaven.  It  is  one  of  the  crosses  which  brave 
men,  determined  to  be  true  at  any  cost,  sooner  or  later 
have  to  take  up.     It  is  a  school  where  strong  principles 


ALONE   AT   ATHENS.  341 

are  planted,  strong  convictions  are  nourished,  and  strong 
energies  are  trained.  Kules  of  action  taken  up  merely 
out  of  deference  to  prevailing  notions  fluctuate  with 
change  of  place  and  time.  Those  wrought  into  the  con- 
science in  solitude  are  more  apt  to  come  at  first  hand 
from  God.  Here  is  the  test  of  courage,  and  of  all  real 
characters.  Can  you  live,  work,  suffer,  stand  out,  move 
forward,  alone  ?  Can  you  go  where  everybody  refuses 
to  go  with  you,  and  only  the  clear  command  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  calls?  Can  you  stay  at  your  post,  and  hold 
your  own,  when  the  whole  multitude,  the  class  whose 
favor  you  prize  most,  the  set  that  claims  you,  some  of 
them  perhaps  as  conscientious  as  yourself,  decline,  or 
retreat  ?  This  settles  it  whether  you  are  merely  a  piece 
of  movable  furniture  in  the  halls  of  a  worldly  society, 
a  manufacture  moulded  by  the  hands  of  fashion,  or  a 
living  and  independent  soul,  satisfied  to  walk  with  that 
Man  of  men  who  had  not  where  to  lay  His  head  while 
He  was  showing  the  world  the  truth  and  love  of  God  ; 
satisfied  to  live  with  the  apostle  who  thought  it  good  to 
be  left  alone  at  Athens,  for  duty's  sake,  and  who  tarried 
another  time  at  Ephesus  because,  around  the  door  that 
was  opened  to  him  to  testify  for  Christ,  there  were  "  many 
adversaries." 

In  all  the  biographies  of  human  greatness  we  find  this 
proved  by  examples.  I  try  in  vain  to  think  of  one  vic- 
torious and  memorable  saint  who  has  not  had,  some  time 
or  other,  the  discipline  of  the  desert,  some  seasons  of 
awful  retirement  to  a  mountain,  in  a  night, — away  from 
where  men  are  coming  and  going.  It  was  there  that 
these  leaders  of  the  world's  life  have  gathered  gifts  from 
on  high,  have  broken  the  bondage  of  ambition  and 
vanity,  and  have  come  so  close  to  Christ  that  His  own 
sacrificial  power  entered  into  them.     Men   that  have 


342  ALONE   AT  ATHENS. 

been  mucli  in  solitude  have  generally  been  tlie  heroic 
figures  of  history, — men  coming  out  of  the  wilderness, 
back  from  deserts,  down  from  the  mount, — Abraham 
and  Moses,  Samuel  and  Elijah,  David  and  John  the 
Baptist.  Out  of  the  Bible  no  less  than  in  it,  it  is  remark- 
able how  the  master-men  have  been  at  some  period 
lonely  men.  They  had  to  break  friendship  with  the 
average  social  morality,  too  honest  for  compromise,  too 
loyal  for  the  buying  and  selling  of  conscience,  too  pure 
for  popularity,  and  therefore,  after  they  had  walked  apart 
in  the  world  with  the  Man  of  sorrows  and  solitude,  we 
see  tliem  walking  out  of  it  at  last  with  the  triumphant 
step  of  believers  who  had  kept  the  faith, — conquerors 
who  finished  their  course  with  joy. 

Hence,  too,  the  defect  you  are  sure  to  find  in  people 
that  have  never  accepted  or  created  for  themselves  these 
intervals  of  seclusion.  They  may  be  stirring  characters 
but  thin,  loud  but  shallow,  wanting  in  reverence  and 
steady  power,  over-anxious  about  results  and  appearances, 
over-deferential  to  the  popular  cry,  leaning  upon  social 
judgments,  appealing  to  social  maxims,  never  quite  easy 
"  alone,'' — at  home  only  in  the  "  multitude  "  but  afraid 
of  the  "  mount,"  shrill  men,  easy  to  find,  and  serviceable 
in  some  ways,  but  with  no  deep,  subtonic  notes  in  their 
manhood,  and  no  heavenly  signification  in  their  faces. 
Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  imaginary  world  of  Oriental  luxury, 
describes  a  merry  feast,  inaccessible  to  care  or  pain,  "  at 
which,  nevertheless,"  he  says,  "  there  was  not  one  guest 
who  did  not  dread  the  moment  when  solitude  should 
deliver  him  to  the  tyranny  of  reflection."  A  "  tyranny  " 
perhaps  to  the  cowards  who  dare  not  face  their  own 
consciences ;  but,  if  society  makes  them  afraid  of  self- 
knowledge  and  uneasy  before  God,  society  itself  is  the 
tyrant.     Most  gay  companies  have  more  or  less  of  this 


ALONE   AT   ATHENS.  343 

covered  foreboding  and  unrest  in  them:  no  music 
drowns  it,  and  no  smiles  can  make  it  beautiful.  It  is  the 
earnest,  hearty  workmen,  with  God  and  for  God,  who 
know  how  to  use  society  and  how  to  welcome  solitude, — 
how  to  take  with  equal  joy  active  service  for  Christ  in 
the  world,  or  retirement  with  Him  when  He  says, 
"  Come  ye  apart"  ;  how  to  be  refreshed  with  fellowships 
at  Thessalonica,  and  to  be  left  at  Athens  alone. 

If  it  is  true,  as  seems  to  be  generally  agreed,  that  the 
evangelist's  expression,  "  Many  were  coming  and  going, 
and  there  was  no  leisure,"  pictures  in  one  vivid  phrase 
the  manners  of  our  own  times, — if  it  is  an  outward- 
living  and  fast-living  and  self-indulgent  generation, — a 
noisy  and  showy  age,  then  the  Church  never  needed 
more  than  now  to  repeat  her  Lord's  great  doctrine  of 
religious  retirement  and  private  prayer.  The  more 
engrossing  our  tendencies  to  secular  arrogance  and  a 
mere  surface  morality,  varnishing  vice  instead  of  uproot- 
ing it,  the  more  watchfully  you  who  are  Christians 
ought  to  guard  the  sacred  retreats  of  meditation  and 
worship.  This  nation  could  hardly  have  been  what  it  is, 
or  done  what  it  has,  if  our  ancestors  had  brought  up  their 
sons  and  daughters  in  the  glaring  public  parlors  and 
refectories  of  a  vast  hotel.  Strong  character  is  a  separate 
thing;  and  it  requires  a  separate,  individual  nurture. 
Promiscuous  intermixtures  never  produce  it.  It  might 
very  well  be  defined  as  the  power  of  standing  alone  ^  sin- 
gle-hearted principle ;  independent  abiding  by  the  right- 
eousness of  God.  And  how  we  see  the  want  of  it 
everywhere,  wherever  men  or  women  meet  together; 
wherever  majorities  browbeat  an  unpopular  foith ; 
wherever  the  sound  of  many  feet  tempts  you  to  join  a 
crowd  in  doing  evil ;  wherever  you  are  likely  to  be  a 
loser  in  money,  or  to  be  laughed  at,  or  voted  down,  for 


344  ALONE    AT   ATHENS. 

not  doing  as  those  about  you  do, — staying  away  in  your 
little  Athens  of  hostility  and  desertion; — wherever 
Christ  is  on  one  side  saying,  "  Come  after  Me,  live  with 
Me,  suifer  for  Me,"  and  the  world  is  on  the  other  side 
saying,  "Here  are  mirth  and  ease,  and  here  are  wine 
and  meat,  and  favors  and  good  offers  and  fine  establish- 
ments, and  flattering  notices  of  the  public  press." 
Righteousness  never  counts  her  companions.  This  is 
the  heroic  loneliness  of  all  God's  great  ones  from  the 
beginning, — of  Jacob  left  alone  through  the  long  night 
of  his  agony,  wrestling  with  the  angel,  till  he  had  power 
with  God  and  prevailed ;  of  Moses  receiving  his  com- 
mission to  emancipate  and  organize  a  nation,  alone  in  the 
mountains ;  of  Elijah,  when  he  cried,  "  Lord,  they  have 
killed  Thy  prophets,  and  digged  down  Thine  altars,  and 
I  am  left  alone,  and  they  seek  my  life " ;  of  Daniel  in 
his  exile,  watched  by  an  idolatrous  monarch,  kneeling 
three  times  a  day  with  his  face  towards  Jerusalem ;  of 
St.  Peter  when  he  answered  the  rulers,  "  Whether  it  be 
right  in  the  sight  of  God  to  hearken  unto  you  more 
than  unto  God,  judge  ye  "  ;  and  higher  yet,  of  Him  who 
trod  the  winepress  of  His  redemption  so  divinely  and 
awfully  alone  as  to  exclaim  to  the  most  faithful  of  His 
followers,  "  All  ye  shall  be  scattered,  every  man  to  his 
own,  and  shall  leave  me  alone  ;  and  yet  I  am  not," — 
never  am,  and  never  can  be,  utterly  "  alone,  because  the 
Father  is  with  Me." 

So  St.  Paul's  striking  expression  opens  its  meaning. 
In  three  particulars,  in  order,  we  shall  have  the  breadth 
and  the  point  of  the  instruction. 

First,  the  God  of  our  lives  puts  into  all  of  them  some 
solitude,  for  a  purpose  of  His  own.  l^othing  else  would  do 
as  well.  He  arranges  it  for  us  that  we  cannot  be  always 
in  anybody's  company.     He  keeps  curtains  about  us,  and 


ALONE   AT   ATHENS.  345 

drops  tliem  very  often.  Friend  after  friend  departs. 
Something  happens  that  tells  you  there  is  a  space  of 
mutual  misunderstanding  or  want  of  understanding 
between  you  and  the  nearest  and  dearest  heart  on  earth. 
There  is  a  night  between  every  two  days.  He  ordains 
Bickness,  and  shuts  us  in  chambers,  and  sends  us  on 
journeys,  and  beckons  away  from  us  all  our  companions. 
Is  it  not  plain  that  this  is  because  the  deepest  and  holiest 
exercises  of  the  Spirit  are  where  no  human  presence  is 
by  ?  Look  back  along  your  years  past.  If  repentance 
ever  took  hold  of  you  with  its  solemn  hands,  and  held 
you  still,  and  bade  you  look  up  for  mercy ;  if  the  great 
choice  between  God  and  self  was  ever  made,  was  it  not 
when  you  were  alone  with  your  Saviour?  The  spot 
where  the  old  selfish  nature  is  cast  down,  and  the  soul 
passes  from  spiritual  death  to  spiritual  life, — the  prodigal 
rising  out  of  his  hunger  and  husks, — is  a  solitary  spot. 
Before  the  Spirit  has  done  His  deepest  and  best  work  in 
you  He  will  have  you  all  to  Himself.  The  question  of 
everlasting  love  is  a  private  question :  Wilt  thou  be 
Mine  forever?  Tbe  Bridegroom  must  stand  at  your 
heart's  door  when  no  human  form,  or  face,  or  voice,  can 
come  in  between  you  and  Him.  Each  succeeding  strug- 
gle, when  we  get  the  better  of  a  besetting  sin,  when  we 
wrestle  with  a  fierce  tempter  and  finally  cast  him  behind 
us,  when  we  make  the  terrible  sacrifice  which  carries  us 
clear  of  some  entangling  alliance  or  corrupting  but  fas- 
cinating acquaintance  and  sets  our  feet  on  a  rock,  or 
when  God  himself  puts  out  His  hand  and  cleanses  us  by 
some  unsought  sufiering, — is  solitary  work.  Conversions 
are  solitary.  Great  griefs  are  solitary.  The  heart  breaks 
"  alone."  When  each  one  of  us  will  hear  a  voice  saying, 
"  Come,  walk  with  Me  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death,"  or  a  voice  saying,  "  Come,  walk  with  Me  on  the 


346  ALONE   AT   ATHENS. 

liigli  places  of  purity  and  sacrifice, — arise  and  depart,  for 
this  is  not  your  rest.  Turn  ye,  for  why  will  ye  die 
eternally  ? " — it  will  be  as  if  all  mortal  shapes  had  van- 
ished from  our  sight.  Salvation  is  an  individual  matter, 
and  the  starting  towards  it  is  in  a  desert  place, — peni- 
tence, humiliation,  self-surrender.  Perhaps  it  is  because 
in  such  separation  from  society  there  is  an  unwonted 
openness  and  honesty  of  mind  which  any  human  listener 
or  looker-on  would  disturb.  In  this  regard  our  com- 
munion with  Christ  only  obeys  the  law  of  all  lofty  and 
delicate  friendships.  Intervention  is  interruption ;  and 
even  the  best  society  on  earth  is  not  good  enough  to 
divide  your  intercourse  with  your  Master. 

Secondly,  loneliness  sometimes  becomes  lonesome- 
ness ; — the  excessively  secluded  life  is  embittered  by  a 
craving  for  sympathy.  That  would  have  been  St.  Paul's 
feeling  at  Athens,  and  he  would  have  thought  it  not 
"  good  "  but  bad  to  be  left  there,  but  for  the  one  Divine 
Friend  who  stayed  with  him.  It  is  in  His  felt  presence 
and  affection,  and  nowhere  besides,  that  those  hearts  are 
to  find  their  consolation  which  are  imprisoned  in  an 
unwilling  separation  from  their  kind.  However  throng- 
ed the  streets,  or  however  brilliant  the  season,  these 
uncheered  souls  are  all  around  us.  Say  what  we  will, 
and  bear  it  nobly  as  they  may,  it  is  a  daily  crucifixion ; 
and  if  we  are  not  touched  by  it  we  are  not  Christlike. 
It  is  small  comfort  that  you  are  not  "  interrupted "  in 
your  monotonous  isolation,  if  all  the  while  you  have  an 
aching  imagination  of  a  possible  interruption  which 
would  call  out  every  energy  and  aspiration  within  you 
into  generous  action.  By  far  the  greater  number  of  us 
have  hours  when  we  long  for  nothing  so  much  as  to  hear 
some  fellow-soul  say, — "  I  know  how  you  suffer ;  I  see 
your  struggle ;  bear  up ;  struggle  on ;  one  heart  at  least 


ALONE   AT   ATHENS.  34:7 

answers  to  yours."  There  are  constitutions  finely  tem- 
pered which  need  continual  protection,  but  have  it  only 
under  coarse,  sordid  hands, — lacerating  wherever  they 
touch.  There  are  self-distrustful,  timid  creatures,  tor- 
tured with  a  despairing  sense  of  failure  and  fatigue,  who 
get  never  an  encouraging  look  or  reassuring  accent. 
Oh,  this  is  a  loneliness  that  makes  every  other  meaning 
of  the  word  weak, — colder  than  Polar  winds,  and 
bleaker  than  Siberian  deserts.  "What  is  the  comfort? 
Only  one.  For  all  these  the  Man  of  Sorrows  is  the  only 
companion,  and  His  hidden  love  the  only  consolation. 
What  would  Athens  have  been  to  Paul  but  for  his 
Saviour  ?  Draw  nigh,  O  every  solitary  soul,  to  Mary's 
Son  !  Let  Him  draw  nigh  to  you ;  He  understands  the 
most  reserved.  He  knows  your  unutterable  secret  with- 
out the  telling,  infinite  in  tenderness.  He  has  watched 
your  silent  war,  and  waited  with  your  waiting,  and 
carried  griefs  just  like  yours.  "  If  any  heart  will  open 
the  door  to  Me,  I  will  come  in,  and  My  Father  will 
come." 

Take  it  finally  for  your  encouragement  in  your  more 
secluded  and  least  noticed  services  for  Christ,  that  His 
blessing  rests  upon  you  as  graciously  in  your  obscurity 
as  upon  the  most  conspicuous  of  His  workmen.  Paul 
the  despised  missionary  at  Athens  is  as  sure  of  his  Sav- 
iour's presence  and  benediction  as  when  the  priests  and 
populace  of  Lystra  are  crowning  him  with  garlands  and 
ready  to  worship  Him  with  their  sacrifices.  We  are 
slow  to  learn  that  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  is  no  more 
in  the  assembly  of  ten  thousand  than  where  one  tired 
laborer  watches  by  the  sick  orphan  child  in  his  neigh- 
borhood all  night,  or  one  daughter  of  fortune  and  cul- 
ture cheerfully  crucifies  every  taste,  every  Sunday,  to 
teach  a  group  of  unclean  vagabonds  how  to  pray  to 


348  ALONE   AT   ATHENS. 

their  Father,  and  how  to  live  purely  for  Christ.  We 
hurry  into  publicity,  as  if  that  were  heaven,  and  are 
impatient  to  count  converts  and  see  results,  as  if  that 
were  salvation.  Not  among  the  thunders  and  blare  of 
popular  acclaim,  but  away  from  crowds,  in  nooks  and 
corners  of  the  earth,  close  down  to  the  roots  and  foun- 
tains of  the  world's  welfare,  are  offered  day  by  day  the 
worthiest  sacrifices  of  Christian  love.  The  most  glorious 
chronicles  and  monuments  of  Athens, — called  "  the  gar- 
den of  great  intellects," — are  not  in  her  letters,  her  tem- 
ples, or  her  arms,  but  are  in  that  little  record  of  the 
bent  and  friendless  traveller  who  thought  it  good  to  be 
left  there  alone,  to  lift  the  cross,  to  herald  a  kingdom 
not  of  this  world,  and  to  preach, — "  to  the  Greeks  fool- 
ishness,"— Christ  the  wisdom  and  the  power  of  God. 

We  reach  then  the  one  great  principle  which  is  the 
same  for  both  parts  of  our  Christian  life, — the  hours  of 
retirement  and  the  hours  of  action, — the  soul  in  secret 
and  in  society.  There  is  such  a  thing,  attainable  to  us 
all,  as  a  living  heart  of  loving  faith  and  faithful  love 
which  beats  steadily  for  God  and  man,  whether  in  the 
unsympathizing  streets  of  a  foreign  city,  or  in  the  warm 
circle  and  communion  of  kindred  souls  at  home, — out 
in  the  world,  or  around  the  altar.  When  Christ  said  to 
the  weary  disciples,  "  Come  ye  apart  and  rest,"  did  He 
say,  "  Stay  apart  ?  Scorn  society  ?  Escape,  like  a  senti- 
mental hermit,  from  mankind,  because  mankind  are 
bad"?  ISTever  that.  "Eest  awhileP  But  when  the 
noisy  comers  and  goers,  fainting,  sinning,  dying,  needed 
His  gracious  ministries  again,  he  broke  up  His  rest  and 
went  back  to  feed  their  hunger,  to  heal  their  sick,  to 
wash  their  feet.  When  the  people  pressed  upon  Him 
out  of  their  cities,  and  cried  to  Him,  He  had  compassion 
on  them,  and  came  down  from  the  mount,  because  tlipy 


ALONE   AT   ATHENS.  349 

were  as  sheep  having  no  shepherd ;  and  then  Master  and 
disciples  went  on  their  way  of  work  together.  Our 
religion  is  one  half  the  loving  adoration  of  God;  the 
other  half  is  the  loving  service  of  the  brother  whom  we 
have  seen ;  our  fellow-man.  Get  down  on  your  knees, 
alone,  or  you  will  begin  no  work  aright ;  and  then  up, 
and  be  doing ! 

Our  Lord  gave  it  for  the  Creed  of  His  Church  that 
faith  justifies.  He  gave  it  for  the  life  of  His  followers 
that  faith  without  works  is  dead. 


THE  HUMAN  SOCIETY  IN  THE  CITY  OF  GOD. 

I^ifth  Sunday  after  Easter. 

"Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts:  There  shall  yet  old  men  and 
old  women  dwell  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  and  every  man  with  his 
staff  in  his  hand  for  very  age.  And  the  streets  of  the  city  shall  be 
full  of  boys  and  girls  playing  in  the  streets  thereof." — Zech.  viii.  4,  5. 

I  FIND  this  remarkable  prediction  in  one  of  to-daj's 
lessons,  in  the  midst  of  a  passage  where  a  great  Plebrew 
prophet  is  encouraging  his  countrymen  in  one  of  their 
dark  days  with  promises  of  a  bright  time  to  come,  when 
the  desolations  of  war  and  famine  shall  be  repaired,  and 
a  prosperous  population  will  flow  back  into  the  empty 
liighways.  The  dear  old  capital, -the  centre  of  their 
reverential  affections  and  seat  of  their  worship,  beauti- 
ful for  situation  and  holy  for  its  history,  will  put  on  its 
thriving  look  again,  and  be  the  same  blessed  home  to 
them  that  it  was  before.  The  words  used  are  so  vivid 
that  the  writer  seems  to  become  an  inspired  artist ; — 
with  a  few  clear  strokes  and  strong  colors  he  paints  a 
fascinating  picture  of  that  coming  glorj^  of  his  nation, 
so  that  we,  standing  here  so  many  hundred  years 
afterwards,  find  it  as  fresh  as  if  the  artist's  hand  were 
just  moved  aside  from  the  canvas.  How  thoroughly 
human  the  figures  and  impressions  of  that  Bible-picture 
are  ;  and  how  lifelike  they  represent  our  religion  to  be ! 
For  observe,  first  of  all,  this  was  the  city  of  God, — a 


THE    HUMAN    SOCIETY   IN    THE   CITY    OF    GOD.  351 

city  that  He  has  fashioned  and  filled  after  His  own  de- 
sign, just  as  He  wished  it  to  be.  This  future  Jerusalem 
was  no  mere  mortal  metropolis,  built  by  human  ambition, 
or  populated  by  some  sordid  colony  that  had  said,  "  Go 
to,  now  ;  let  us  go  to  such  a  city,  and  buy  and  sell,  and 
get  gain."  It  was  to  be  modelled  after  a  heavenly  pat- 
tern. It  was  to  embody  the  Divine  ideal  of  a  perfect, 
pure,  and  happy  state.  In  the  verse  before,  the  prophet 
had  told  us  this  in  the  plainest  language :  "  Thus  saith 
the  Lord  :  I  am  returned  unto  Zion,  and  will  dwell  in  the 
midst  of  Jerusalem ;  and  Jerusalem  shall  be  called  a  city 
of  truth;  and  the  mountain  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  the 
holy  mountain."  There  is  no  mistake,  then,  in  the  city's 
composition,  and  no  accident  in  its  arrangements.  If 
the  Lord  does  not  mean  to  have  old  men  and  old 
w^omen  in  it,  they  will  not  be  seen  there ;  if  boys  and 
girls  are  found  playing  in  the  streets  of  it,  we  may  be 
sure  they  did  not  stray  in  as  vagrants,  or  get  dropped 
there  as  foundlings ;  they  are  there  by  the  express 
appointment  of  the  Father  of  all  the  families  of  the 
earth. 

We  may  take  these  sentences,  therefore,  as  a  graphic 
outline  of  what  God  would  have  a  Christian  state  of 
society  to  be,  not  in  heaven,  but  in  this  world.  In 
the  scriptural  imagery,  or  symbolism,  Jerusalem  is  a  type 
of  the  Christian  Church.  Where  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
has  done  its  perfect  work,  where  Christianity  has  realized 
itself  in  social  institutions,  and  has  penetrated  all  our 
private  and  public  life  with  its  practical  regulation,  there 
the  whole  of  our  being  will  come  under  its  control ;  all 
its  periods,  from  childhood  to  old  age,  will  take  the  stamp 
and  bear  the  fruit  of  this  holy  and  gracious  power  in  the 
heart;  every  capacity  in  us  will  be  invigorated  to  its 
best  exercise  by  Christian  faith ;  our  common  work, — the 


352  THE    HUMAN    SOCIETY    IN    THE    CITY    OF    GOD. 

handiwork  of  the  husbandman  and  mechanic,  the  in- 
tellectual work  of  the  scholar,  the  housework  of  woman, 
the  shop  work  of  the  trader, — will  be  better  and  safer  and 
happier  work  for  being  done  in  the  name  of  Christ,  for 
the  sake  of  Christ,  out  of  that  living  union  of  the  heart 
with  Him  which  makes  Him  the  real  life  and  power  of 
all  our  daily  service, — done  by  a  Christian  will,  with  a 
Christian  purpose,  in  a  Christian  spirit,  with  Christian 
hands  and  brain  and  feet. 

And  thus  you  have  the  subject  before  you.  It  seems 
to  me  to  be  greatly  needed.  There  is,  here  in  the  midst 
of  us,  and  everywhere  about  us,  a  painful  and  almost 
unaccountable  separation  between  the  vague  notions 
about  religion  that  float  loosely  through  men's  minds 
and  those  great  interests  and  employments  which  occupy 
them  from  morning  to  night,  six  days  of  every  week.  It 
is  as  if  a  farmer  should  dig  a  deep  trench,  or  build  a 
high  wall,  between  his  granary  and  his  table — spending 
the  bulk  of  his  time  in  gathering  in  his  harvests,  but 
then  locking  them  up  in  barn  and  cellar,  forgetting 
that  they  grew  for  the  daily  nourishment  of  the  body. 
Our  faith  is  really  the  bread  of  our  life.  This  Word  of 
God,  what  is  said  of  it  ?  "  Men  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the 
mouth  of  God."  Moses  wrote  that  on  the  threshold  of 
one  great  religious  dispensation  in  the  world's  history, 
and  Jesus  Christ  repeated  it,  at  His  temptation,  at  the 
opening  of  another,  and  He  added,  "  I  am  the  Word  and 
I  am  the  Bread."  The  substance  of  the  creed  you  confess 
is  not  like  a  pew  in  church,  or  a  Sunday  suit  that  is  put 
on  and  oiF,  to  be  seen  or  occupied  only  when  the  labor 
and  struggle  and  trial  of  life  are  interrupted  ;  it  is  just 
as  much  meant  for  our  soul's  food  as  the  corn  which 
God's  sunshine,  soil,  and  air  have  ripened  all  Summer 


THE    HUMAN    SOCIETY    IN   THE   CITY    OF    GOD.  353 

is  meant  to  sustain  the  bodily  forces  that  till  and  gather 
it.  This  Church  is  meant  to  open  straight  into  your 
homes.  The  ideas  you  receive  from  tlie  pulpit  are  not 
merely  for  the  attention  of  the  moment,  for  criticism,  or 
entertainment,  or  a  topic  of  conversation  as  you  walk 
home  from  the  sanctuary  when  the  service  is  over.  They 
are  the  seed-grain  that  is  scattered  on  the  ground,  not  to 
die  there,  or  be  caught  away  by  birds,  but  to  sink  in,  to 
act  on  the  heart  and  be  acted  on  by  it,  in  the  sj)iritual 
chemistry  of  assimilation  and  reproduction,  to  take  root 
and  get  fastened  there,  to  bear  the  blade  and  the  ear. 
These  prayers  and  sermons  that  he  has  heard  ought 
to  be  found  in  every  worshipper,  a  part  of  himself, 
absorbed  into  the  constitution  of  His  character.  If  not, 
how  are  they  much  better  than  the  Chinaman's  praying- 
mill,  or  the  counted  beads  on  the  Romanist's  rosary  ?  I 
know  of  nothing  in  the  whole  religious  condition  of  the 
people  more  wanted  than  some  sliarp  sword  of  the  Spirit 
to  cut  this  curtain  asunder  that  hangs  between  our 
abstract  and  speculative  religious  belief  and  our  ordinary 
intercourse  with  men,  hiding  the  one  from  the  other, — 
some  storm  of  holy  light  that  shall  smite  through  this 
artificial,  half-atheistic  wall  of  partition  between  a  pas- 
sive faith  and  an  active  operation  of  that  faith,  in 
secret  dispositions  and  out-of-door  doings.  The  men 
and  the  children  in  the  street,  as  the  text  says,  should  be 
the  constant  signs  and  witnesses  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
within  them, — men  about  their  business,  children  at 
their  play,  so  toiling  and  trafficking,  or  so  playing,  if  you 
please,  as  to  make  it  plain  that  the  stamp  of  the  regener- 
ation is  upon  them,  the  image  of  Christ  within  them,  all 
citizens  together  of  the  great  unseen  city  and  common- 
wealth of  new-born  souls,  baptized  into  Christ,  and 
bound  to  His  resurrection,  having  their  conversation  in 

33 


354  THE   HUMAN    SOCIETY   IN   THE   CITY   OF   GOD. 

heaven  and  here  at  the  same  time.  There  is  nothing  in 
our  domestic  habits,  that  I  know  of,  too  small  to  bear 
this  stamp  and  seal  of  the  law  of  Christ,  nothing  too 
commonplace  to  be  a  test  of  sanctitication.  If  every 
disciple's  love  and  loyalty  to  Christ  went  into  the  least 
of  his  transactions,  making  his  speech  gentle  and  pure, 
his  bargains  immaculate,  his  temper  as  even  as  that  of 
Him  who  when  lie  was  reviled  reviled  not  again  but 
suffered  patiently,  his  whole  treatment  of  the  world  a  testi- 
mony to  the  cross,  why  then  yon  could  judge  a  man's  faith 
as  you  judge  the  growth  in  your  orchard.  Give  the  com- 
parative anatomist  the  smallest  bone  of  a  bird,  a  fish,  or 
a  quadruped,  that  has  been  buried  a  thousand  years,  and 
out  of  that  fragment  between  his  fingers  lie  is  able  to 
describe  the  entire  creature,  to  name  and  classify  it,  and 
draw  a  likeness  of  the  living  body.  If  we  Christians 
were  as  much  alive  with  Christ  as  the  apostles  were, — as 
we  certainly  ought  to  be  alive  with  Him  who  died  for 
us,  and  who  if  He  becomes  our  indwelling  Saviour 
changes  us  from  glory  to  glory, — we  should  hardly  need 
our  written  covenants  and  formal  professions ;  for  every 
hour's  life  would  be  an  embodied  article  of  our  creed. 
Then  there  would  not  be,  as  now,  three  classes  of  men, 
— unrenewed  men  on  the  one  hand,  true  Christians  on 
the  other,  and  between  these,  a  set  of  professing  Chris- 
tians whose  whole  Christianity  stands  in  their  profession  ; 
there  would  be  only  two  armies,  each  under  its  own 
leader  and  banner — for  Christ  or  against  Him.  In  fact, 
every  hour  of  our  life  is  an  embodied  article  of  our 
creed;  though  it  may  not  be  the  same  creed  that  the 
tongue  repeats.  The  tongue  may  say :  "  I  believe  in 
God  the  Father  Almighty."  But  what  if  your  life  only 
says  to  your  neighbors,  I  believe  in  myself  and  this 
world,  in   good    bargains   and  paying  investments,  in 


THE    HUMAN    SOCIETY    IN    THE   CITY    OF    GOD.  355 

getting  the  most  I  can  and  making  it  more,  or  in  enter- 
tainments and  dress  and  admiration  ?  Is  it  likely  that 
either  your  neigbors  or  God  will  be  deceived  ? 

They  are  not  deceived.  And  this  reminds  us  that  the 
case  is  really  worse  than  we  have  yet  put  it.  We  have 
spoken  of  inconstant  and  inconsistent  religionists. 
There  is  another  class  which  is  largely  created  by  them. 
In  all  these  villages  and  cities  there  are  a  great  many 
men  who  treat  the  whole  system  of  positive  Christianity, 
both  doctrine  and  ordinance,  with  indifference.  They 
live  by  the  side  of  Christian  institutions  very  much  as 
they  would  live  by  neighbors  speaking  another  language 
and  following  different  pursuits.  They  pass  the  church 
door,  but  never  go  in.  A  Bible  lies  on  their  table  or 
shelf  somewhere,  but  it  is  let  alone  as  if  it  had  no  mes- 
sage in  it  for  •  them.  They  hear  the  ringing  of  the 
Sunday  bell,  but  it  stirs  no  Christian  gratitude  and  sig- 
nifies no  Christian  hope ;  the  notes  ring  out  and  die 
away,  freighted  with  no  hallowed  associations,  kin- 
dling no  premonition  of  "  the  rest  that  remaineth  for  the 
people  of  God," — as  unmeaning  to  these  souls  for  which 
the  Eternal  Shepherd  came  as  they  are  to  the  ears 
of  the  dumb  cattle  that  eat  and  sleep  on  the  Summer 
sod,  and  are  buried  under  it.  They  never  acknowledge 
any  acquaintance  with  Revelation,  in  the  street,  nor 
invite  it  to  their  houses,  till  that  one  guest  pushes  in 
which  they  hold  at  bay  as  long  as  medicine  and  fear  can 
do  it ;  and  then,  inconsistently  enough,  they  ask  in,  to 
meet  that  dark  stranger  on  the  way  to  the  graveyard, 
the  minister  of  the  risen  Christ,  whom  they  had  dis- 
owned all  their  lives.  Now,  no  believer  in  the  reality 
of  his  Faith,  whether  he  be  minister  or  layman,  can  look 
this  strange  problem  in  the  face  without  painfully  ask- 
ing the  question,  again  and  again.  What  does  it  mean  ? 


356  THE    HUMAN    SOCIETY    IN   THE   CITY   OF   GOD. 

How  does  it  come  about?  What  can  break  up  this 
strange  and  heathenish  unconcern  ?  The  faith  in  Christ, 
the  trust  in  God,  the  expectation  of  immortality,  the 
love  of  the  Church,  for  which  we  care  more  than  for  all 
the  rest  of  life  together,  is  nothing  to  those  brothers  and 
sisters,  who,  nevertheless,  are  made  just  as  we  are  made. 
Solve  us  this  mystery,  O  science  or  philosophy,  and  we 
will  crown  you  as  the  pwphets  and  interpreters  of  the 
secret  things  of  the  mind  of  man ! 

I  do  not  pretend  to  suggest  here  the  whole  explanation. 
If  we  believe  the  Scripture,  which  knows  a  great  deal 
more  of  us  than  we  know  of  ourselves,  the  sad  reason 
for  much  of  it  is  the  natural  disrelish,  in  a  selfish  and 
self-indulgent  character,  for  an  unselfish,  disinterested 
service;  the  natural  man  discerneth  not  the  things  of 
the  Spirit  of  God;  a  life  of  appetite  and  accumulation, 
i.  e.,  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  glorious  inspiration 
of  the  spirit  of  the  Cross.  Grant  this,  yet  it  does  not 
cover,  by  any  means,  all  the  cases.  Kow  and  then  one 
of  that  sort  of  men  breaks  the  silence,  and  gives  you, 
frankly,  a  difierent  account.  You  find  there  has  grown 
into  his  mind, — perhaps  from  mistaken  and  one-sided 
instruction,  a  settled  impression  that  this  whole  matter 
of  religion  lies  aside  from  his  life,  and  apart  from  its 
vital  interests.  With  those  that  have  it,  he  tells  you, — 
and  he  sincerely  thinks  so  sometimes, — religion  is  a 
class-concern,  or  a  periodical  and  occasional  concern,  at 
any  rate  a  partial  and  narrow  concern.  It  lays  hold 
only  on  a  peculiar  and  exceptional  faculty  in  the  mind. 
It  takes  a  man,  if  at  all,  by  unusual  ways,  ways  over 
which  his  will  has  no  control.  It  comes  to  some,  and 
not  to  others,  and  those  others  must  be  excused.  It  is 
like  the  arbitrary  gifts  that  make  a  man  a  mechanician 
or  a  poet, — that  fix  the  complexion  of  his  face  or  the 


THE    HUMAN    SOCIETY   IN   THE   CITY    OF    GOD.  357 

color  of  his  eyes.  It  lies  off  from  the  great  body  of 
his  manhood  or  his  business, — and  is  therefore  not  to  be 
gone  about,  bred  in,  and  made  a  part  of  every  man's 
substance  and  best  life,  by  any  intelligible,  practicable 
means.  There  is  much  of  this  sentiment  abroad,  and 
it  kills,  in  not  a  few,  all  effort  to  be  Christians. 

Let  us  meet  it  as  directly  as  we  can.  Nothing  will 
be  more  convincing,  in  exploding  the  error,  than  a  daily 
demonstration,  in  our  own  persons  and  conduct,  of  the 
opposite  truth.  "We  turn  and  look  into  the  face  of 
Christ  as  He  walks  the  world  in  the  majesty  and  beauty 
of  His  holiness.  Is  there  anything  there  that  looks  like 
a  class-piety,  an  occasional  or  intermitted  sanctity,  a  faith 
for  some  exceptional  souls,  a  limited  salvation  ?  'No. 
All  our  humanity,  every  faculty,  power,  capacity,  affec- 
tion of  it,  is  taken  up  into  Him.  His  blessed  incarna- 
tion. His  coming  in  our  flesh,  includes  everything  that 
is  in  you  and  me.  Until  every  element  and  fibre,  every 
faculty  and  power,  in  us,  is  reached  by  His  redemption, 
touched  with  the  beauty  of  His  righteousness,  and  made 
new  by  His  transforming  grace,  we  are  not  entirely  His, 
— not  complete  Christians.  He  speaks,  on  the  mount 
and  along  the  hill-sides  and  highways  and  lake-shores  of 
Judaea.  Do  you  gather  from  anything  He  says  that  His 
followers  are  to  have  two  divided  lives,  serving  mammon 
a  part  of  the  time  and  God  a  part,  the  world  with  their 
business  energies,  and  God  only  with  some  sentimental 
states  brought  out  at  special  seasons?  Does  He  say, 
Come  unto  Me,  a  part  of  you  who  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden, — or.  Let  here  and  there  one  come?  Does  He 
say  that  He  died  for  a  portion  of  His  Father's  family? 
Which  one  of  our  faculties,  of  intellect,  heart,  or  will, 
does  He  set  apart,  and  say,  My  coming  and  My  Gospel 
and  My  righteousness  have  nothing  to  do  with  that  ? 


358  THE    HUMAN    SOCIETY   IN   THE   CITY    OF    GOD. 

Analyze  the  very  essence  and  marrow  of  the  Chris- 
tian ,  life.  What  are  the  parts  of  it?  Faith,  Hope, 
Charity.  Is  any  one  of  them  a  class-possession  ?  Chris- 
tianity is  too  divine  and  bountiful  a  blessing  to  be  so 
hedged  in  and  misapprehended.  It  intends  that  every 
man  and  woman  and  boy  and  girl  shall  be  the  better  for 
it,  and  every  corner  and  instant  in  the  character  and  life 
of  each  shall  be  the  better.  It  comes  to  make  better 
workmen  as  well  as  better  believers,  better  men  for  the 
life  that  now  is  and  for  that  which  is  to  come, — better 
citizens  and  neighbors,  better  husbands  and  fathers, 
better  parents  and  children,  better  boys  and  girls.  It 
would  make  strong  men  more  manly,  pure  women  more 
pure,  light-hearted  children  lighter-hearted,  because  the 
love  of  Christ  casts  all  fear  out.  The  unseen  city  it  is 
silently  building  is  a  city  of  truth,  the  mountain  of  the 
Lord  of  hosts,  the  holy  mountain.  Old  men  and  old 
women  shall  dwell  in  it,  and  it  shall  be  full  of  boys  and 
girls  playing  in  the  streets  thereof.  It  comes  down^  to 
be  sure,  like  a  bride,  out  of  heaven,  from  God.  But 
although  it  descends  from  above,  it  is  human  in  its 
adaptations ;  it  is  a  dwelling-place  for  just  such  people 
as  we  all  are ;  human  feet  walk  in  it ;  human  voices  are 
heard  along  its  avenues;  human  comfort  lights  its 
windows.  The  Gospel  is  sent  into  the  world  just  as  the 
world  is.  It  is  not  some  other  race,  but  ours,  in  its  own 
flesh  and  blood,  in  its  habitations  and  occupations,  that 
the  Saviour  comes  to  teach,  to  purify,  to  redeem,  and  to 
train  up  for  His  future  service, — that  heavenly  labor 
which  is  perfect  rest. 

Accordingly,  we  must  expand  our  ideas  and  give  them 
life,  by  corresponding  convictions  of  the  way.  of  coming 
to  Christ  and  being  made  one  with  Him  in  this  world. 
The  pathways  that  run  up  to  that  Jerusalem  are  not  all  of 


THE    HUMAN    SOCIETY   IN   THE    CITY    OF   GOD.  359 

one  pattern,  or  graded  after  one  scheme.  It  is  enough  that 
each  one  starts  just  where  each  one  of  us  who  is  to  travel 
it  is  found,  and  that  they  all  end  at  the  same  Master's 
feet.  It  is  a  very  simple  road.  Theology  becomes  only 
a  blind  guide  when  it  complicates  and  mystifies  it,  and 
puzzles  the  unsophisticated  mind  with  metaphysical  cross- 
examinations.  Do  you  want  to  be  a  Christian  ?  Then  you 
have  already  begun  to  be  one, — but  you  have  only 
begun.  Do  you  wish  that  Christ  were  even  now  dwell- 
ing in  yoUj  with  His  glorious,  animating,  and  satisfying 
presence,  giving  peace  and  power  to  your  heart  ?  Then 
have  no  misgivings  or  doubts  that  the  motions  of  His 
Spirit  are  already  stirring  your  soul,  and  that  all  you 
have  to  do  is  to  renounce  the  sin  that  prevents  His  per- 
fect entering  and  abiding,  and  believe  that  He  is  waiting 
to  bless  you  with  life  everlasting; — repentance  and  faith. 
Do  you  say,  in  your  timidity,  that  you  wish  you  hated 
sin  more  ?  Be  encouraged ;  what  is  that  wish  but  the 
hatred  and  the  repentance,  in  their  first,  feeble,  incip- 
ient stage  ?  What  those  feelings  need  is  religious  nur- 
ture, to  grow,  to  strengthen,  to  have  food  and  air  and 
light  and  exercise.  That  religious  life  is  yet  but  a  little 
child,  like  one  of  the  children  in  the  streets  of  the  new 
Jerusalem, — and  it  needs  to  be  treated  as  little  children, 
with  their  little  life,  are  treated.  Where  shall  this  be 
done?  Outside  the  Saviour's  fold,  or  within  His  fold? 
Put  the  question  in  another  form :  are  the  flock  and  the 
lambs  fed  out  in  the  wilderness  among  the  briars  and  the 
rocks,  where, — as  I  remember  seeing  it  once  in  a  very 
striking  picture, — the  poor  creature  lies  caught  and 
tangled,  torn  and  bleeding,  in  the  thorns,  with  the  vul- 
ture wheeling  slowly  in  circles  up  in  the  air,  waiting  for 
him  to  die,  and  the  strong  sea  beating  the  rocky  preci- 
pice below,  and  the  shepherd  is  seen  slowly  climbing  up, 


360  THE    HUMAN    SOCIETY   IN   THE   CITY    OF    GOD. 

and  looking  everywhere,  his  own  hands  bleeding  with  the 
briars,  his  own  feet  torn  with  the  edges  of  the  rocks, — 
is  that  the  place  for  the  saved  wanderer  to  be  fed,  to  be 
healed,  and  grow  strong  ?  'No.  The  Shepherd  lajeth 
it  on  His  shoulders  rejoicing,  and  carries  it  home.  That 
is  the  place.  Where  is  the  Christian's  home,  but  the 
Church  ?  But  you  say  you  are  afraid  you  have  not  faith 
enough  to  enter  there.  Listen  to  an  old  singing  saint 
who  knew  the  human  heart  through  and  through : 

"  He  that  lacks  faith,  and  apprehends  a  grief 
Because  he  lacks  it,  has  a  true  belief; 
And  he  that  grieves  because  his  grief 's  so  small, 
Has  a  true  grief  and  the  best  faith  of  all." 

The  greatest  part  of  salvation  on  our  part  is  in  the  being 
willing  to  be  saved.  The  great  road  to  heaven  is  the 
taking  up  of  the  work,  just  as  we  take  up  any  practical 
and  earnest  work,  into  which  our  whole  heart  goes.  I 
fear  we  cover  the  matter  up,  and  spoil  the  simplicity  of 
Christ,  with  over-much  will-work  and  system-building, 
and  over-many  requirements  that  Christ  never  laid 
down.  I  fear  it  more  and  more,  the  longer  I  live.  The 
great  ideas  that  the  modern  mind  of  Christendom  needs 
to  grasp  and  realize  are  the  simplicity  of  the  conditions  of 
Christ's  salvation,  the  practical  character  of  faith,  the  fit- 
ness of  Christianity  to  all  the  relations  and  positions  of 
human  life,  the  need  and  value  of  the  Christian  training 
of  the  young,  and  the  using  of  the  visible  system  of 
Christ's  Church  for  that  end.  I  join  the  Master  at  the 
beginning  of  His  ministry.  I  see  how  natural  and 
plain  it  all  was.  He  showed  Himself  to  men,  and  they 
loved  Him.  He  spoke  to  them,  and  called  them  by 
their  names, — Philip,  E"athaniel,  Andrew,  Peter,  James, 
and  John.  One  by  one  they  turned  and  hearkened. 
He  said,  Follow  Me.     They  followed  Him,  attracted  to 


THE    HUMAN    SOCIETY   IN   THE   CITY    OF    GOD.  361 

Him,  and  seeing  something  in  Him  that  drew  them  on. 
He  began  to  teach  them,  and  as  soon  as  He  began,  what 
He  told  them  of  was  the  kingdom, — the  home,  the  family 
circle  of  Faith,  where  they  were  to  learn  to  live  and  love 
and  grow  in  Him,  and  become  one  in  Him ;  the  city  of 
old  and  young.  Oh  if  those  unbelieving  and  indif- 
ferent men  and  women  could  only  see  how  plain  the  way 
is,  and  how  full  of  human  joy  and  blessedness  that 
divine  city  is,  and  how  suited  its  ordinances  of  prayer 
and  scripture  and  sacrament  are  to  call  out  all  that  is  best 
in  them,  and  build  them  up  into  free  and  strong  and 
noble  souls,  they  could  not  stay  away,  or  wait  outside. 
They  would  say  this  day,  "As  for  me  and  my  house, 
we  will  serve  the  Lord." 

Yes,  as  for  me  and  my  house !  The  children  were 
seen  by  the  prophet  in  the  streets  of  the  new  Jerusalem. 
Christ  has  work  for  all  of  them  to  do, — gladness  for  all  of 
them  to  feel.  The  city  is  wide  and  wide  open.  The  old 
men  and  old  women  are  there, — every  man  with  his  staff' 
in  his  hand  for  very  age.  It  is  a  healthy  place  then,  a 
place  to  live  long  in.  Between  these  two  extremes, — the 
old  man  leaning  on  his  staff  and  the  boys  and  girls  playing 
in  the  streets, — all  the  periods  of  human  life  are  com- 
passed, and  so  our  blessed  Faith  is  suited  to  them  all. 
It  is  a  comprehensive  Faith.  It  comforts,  guides,  en- 
riches, sanctifies  them  alL  The  city  is  a  place  by  itself; 
a  holy  place ;  yet  it  gathers  into  it  all  souls  that  will 
come  in  by  the  door.  You  know  who  it  was  that  said, 
"  I  am  the  Door  of  the  sheep ;  by  Me  if  any  man  enter 
in,  he  shall  go  in  and  out  and  find  pasture." 

Blessed  are  they  that  do  His  commandments  that  they 
may  have  right  to  the  tree  of  life,  and  may  enter  in 
through  the  gate  into  the  city.  The  Spirit  and  the  Bride 
say,  Come,  and  whosoever  will,  let  him  come! 


THE  HEAYENS  OPENED.  . 

Ascension  Day, 

"And  behold  a  ladder  set  up  on  the  earth,  and  the  top  of  it 
reached  to  heaven;  and  behold  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and 
descending  on  it." — Genesis  xxviii.  13. 

**  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  hereafter  ye  shall  see  heaven  open, 
and  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending  upon  the  Son  of 
Man."— >S^.  John  i.  51. 

*'No  man  hath  ascended  up  to  heaven,  but  He  that  came  down 
from  heaven,  even  the  Son  of  Man  which  is  in  heaven." — St,  John 
iii.  13. 

You  are  struck,  first  of  all,  in  these  transactions,  with 
the  fact  that  they  all  lie  entirely  apart  from  everything 
known  to  ns  in  common  history,  or  ever  experienced  on 
the  level  of  this  world.  The  heavens,  generally  shut  up 
in  close  reserve  and  inexorable  silence,  are  set  open 
to  the  eyes  of  men;  beings  called  angels  are  visibly 
passing  and  repassing ;  supernatural  creatures  are  coming 
on  errands  to  Christ  and  going  from  Him,  He  being  at 
home  in  the  midst  of  them,  at  once  their  object  and 
Master ;  and  finally  this  Lord  himself  is  shown  coming 
from  heaven,  and  going  up  into  it.  Highways  such  as 
run  between  two  of  our  earthly  cities  we  see  travelled 
both  ways  between  this  planet  and  the  new  Jerusalem. 
Outside  of  Kevelation,  we  shall  all  say  at  once,  there 
is  nothing  like  this. 

Materialism  is  our  first  danger.     Church  building  and 


THE  HEAVENS  OPENED.  363 

the  Lords's  Day,  prayer  itself,  ministry,  creed,  ordinances 
and  sacraments  rest  on  a  belief  in  a  supernatural  world 
fall  of  supernatural  life,  or  else  tliey  are  a  slowly  perish- 
ing pretence.  If  that  faith  in  unseen  beings  and  an 
unseen  country  dies,  however  silently  or  gradually,  the 
whole  ftibric  of  what  we  call  religion  becomes  a  solemn 
unreality. 

Before  joining  the  several  passages  just  repeated 
together,  and  drawing  from  them  the  comforting  instruc- 
tion of  their  joint  doctrine,  we  will  look  at  them  a 
moment  separately.  Each  of  them  pertains  to  a  human 
person  and  place,  and  while  what  is  written  in  them  all 
alike  is  surpassingly  sublime,  the  record  of  each  one  has 
a  beauty  peculiar  to  itself. 

In  the  first,  one  of  the  principal  characters  in  the 
earliest  period  of  the  world,  a  patriarch,  being  on  a 
journey  undertaken  in  obedience  to  God's  special 
command,  sleeps,  after  the  Oriental  fashion,  in  the 
open  air,  either  under  a  light  awning,  or  with  no  other 
tent  than  the  sky,  the  stars  in  sight.  The  contact  of 
this  man  with  the  sights  and  sounds  of  material  nature 
is  as  direct  and  free,  therefore,  as  that  intercourse  of  his 
bpirit  with  God  which  this  out-of-door  condition  of  things 
about  him  symbolizes.  On  one  of  these  nights  of  Jacob's 
rest,  the  time  comes  when  a  promise  is  prepared  for  liim. 
In  an  age  of  the  future  so  far  away  that  his  thought  can 
grasp  no  clear  conception  of  it, — when  the  sinful  and 
sorrowing  race  of  men  shall  have  learnt,  by  long  trying 
and  by  many  tears,  how  little  it  can  do  of  itself,  when 
the  bad  choice  of  the  first  pair  has  borne  bad  fruit  enough, 
and  when  the  time  appointed  of  the  Father  is  fully 
come, — then  a  descendant  of  this  Jacob  shall  be  born, 
of  such  a  new  and  universal  power  of  life  to  save  men, 
that  in  Him  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  shall  be  ever- 


364  THE    HEAVEN6   OPENED. 

lastingly  blessed.  This  was  the  magnificent  truth  sent 
down  through  that  Eastern  midnight  sky  into  the  shep- 
herd's mind.  No  doubt  his  idea  of  that  wonderful  sal- 
vation would  be  narrow  with  the  narrow  range  of  his 
shepherd-life  and  the  scanty  populations  then  scattered 
between  the  Caspian,  Mediterranean,  and  Arabian  Seas. 
Still  it  must  have  been  to  him  even  there  a  prospect 
inexpressibly  glorious  and  inspiring.  See,  then,  with 
what  brilliant  and  yet  simple  heralding, — such  as  be- 
fitted the  religious  economy  of  that  early  time,  this 
communication  was  made.  There  are  no  books,  no  sanc- 
tuaries, no  pulpits,  no  anointed  prophets  yet ;  but  there 
is  that  eternal  and  all-illuminating  mind  of  the  Jehovah- 
angel,  out  of  which  all  true  prophets  are  afterwards 
to  be  inspired,  all  true  sanctuaries  to  be  built,  and  all 
sacred  Scriptures  to  be  written, — the  "  Word  that  was  in 
the  beginning  with  God,  and  was  God."  He  brings  the 
message,  in  his  own  way ;  and  it  is  a  way  answering  to 
those  childlike  times  on  the  earth  when  God's  great 
men  led  their  flocks  over  the  plains.  Jacob  "  went  out 
from  Beersheba,  toward  Haran.  And  he  lighted  upon  a 
certain  place,  and  tarried  there  all  night,  because  the  sun 
was  set ;  and  he  took  of  the  stones  of  that  place,  and  put 
them  for  his  pillow,  and  lay  down  to  sleep.  And  be- 
hold a  ladder  set  up  on  the  earth,  and  the  top  of  it 
reached  to  heaven;  and  behold  the  angels  of  God 
ascending  and  descending  on  it.  And  the  Lord  stood 
above  it,  and  said.  The  land  whereon  thou  liest,  to  thee 
will  I  give  it  and  to  thy  seed.  And  in  thee  and  in  thy 
seed  shall  all  the  families  of  the  earth  be  blessed." 
l^ow  see.  It  is  just  as  if,  out  of  that  thick  darkness  of 
the  night,  when  mortal  voices  are  still  and  the  public 
daylight  is  veiled,  the  Creator  carved  out  a  temple  for 
Himself,  and  opened  a  hidden  window  of  Jacob's  soul, 


THE   HEAVENS   OPENED.  365 

and  conveyed  to  him  His  assurance  of  His  love.  The 
"  angels "  that  run  to  and  fro  on  the  ladder-steps  are 
only  the  carriers  of  the  message.  He  does  so  always  to 
belie\dng  and  obedient  hearts,  only  without  sight  or 
sound.  In  the  very  earliest  of  all  writings,  the  Life  of 
Job,  supposed  to  date  back  before  the  age  of  Moses  and 
his  books,  and  quite  independent  of  them,  it  is  written, 
"  In  thoughts  from  the  visions  of  the  night,  when  deep 
sleep  falleth  on  men,  then  a  spirit  passed  before  my 
f:ice ;  it  stood  still,  but  I  could  not  discern  the  form 
thereof;  an  image  was  before  mine  eyes,  and  I  heard  a 
voice."  Gradually  these  open  visions  became  infrequent ; 
they  hovered  awhile  on  the  border-land  of  life,  and  so 
disappeared.  Whether  because  man  grew  artificial,  and 
his  senses  more  gross  and  confused,  or  because  it  was 
necessary  that  other  perceptions  should  be  brought  into 
play,  at  any  rate  the  ladder  was  drawm  up,  and  the 
angels  were  concealed.  It  is  very  certain  that  in  the 
glare  of  intellectual  light  their  forms  generally  become 
less  shining.  But  the  faith  in  their  reality  never  lost  its 
place  in  the  old  Church.  Every  devout  Hebrew  sang 
with  David,  "  Praise  the  Lord,  ye  angels  of  His,  ye  that 
excel  in  strength."  Chosen  and  ordained  prophets,  like 
Ezekiel,  could  say,  ^''By  the  river  of  Chebar  the 
heavens  were  opened,  and  I  saw  visions  of  God."  The 
unseen  pathway  between  heaven  and  earth  was  still 
trodden  by  angels.  They  kept  their  heavenly  watch  and 
their  human  charge, — ascending  and  descending,  till  the 
Son  of  Man  came,  who  commands  their  legions,  and 
makes  them  His  ministers. 

So  we  reach  the  second  passage.  This  Son  of  Man  has 
come.  At  the  very  beginning  of  His  course,  standing  on 
the  threshold  of  His  kingdom,  when  Haas  yet  discovers 
His  real  divinity  to  only  a  few  open-minded  and  clean- 


366  THE   HEAVENS    OPENED. 

hearted  men  like  Nathaniel, — an  Israelite  in  whom  there 
is  no  gJ-iile, — He  is  careful  to  say,  "  Hereafter  ye  shall  see 
heaven  open,  and  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  de- 
scending upon  the  Son  of  Man."  That  deeper  sense, 
which  the  deeper  readers  like  Origen  and  Augustine, 
and  Luther  and  Tholuck,  have  never  failed  to  recognize, 
is  this.  Our  Lord's  coming  into  the  world  flings  for- 
ever apart  the  folded  gates  of  the  invisible.  It  throws 
the  two  worlds  open  into  each  other.  It  is  the  very 
reality  which  the  ladder  Jacob  saw  long  before  in 
Syria,  with  the  condescending  and  climbing  angels  on 
it,  typifies  and  prefigures.  From  the  moment  of  Christ's 
baptism,  the  outset  of  His  sacrificial  and  saving  min- 
istry, all  the  bars  and  partition-walls,  and  to  the  eye  of 
faith  even  the  veils  of  the  holy  place,  are  taken  out  of 
the  way.  A  train  of  spiritual  glories  is  from  that  hour 
set  in  motion,  which  will  go  on  breaking  and  brighten- 
ing over  the  earth,  in  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  in  the  awaking 
of  love  and  trust  in  human  hearts,  in  righteous  conduct, 
and  in  the  gathering  of  nations  about  His  cross,  which 
will  have  their  consummation  and  crown  only  when  He 
comes  again  with  His  saints.  This,  then,  is  your  Chris- 
tian privilege,  you  who  believe  and  follow  the  Lord. 
And  as  there  was  a  promise  then,  so  there  comes 
another  promise :  "  Hereafter  ye  shall  seeP  It  is  a  con- 
stantly increasing  clearness,  and  culminating  splendor, 
as  the  great  plan  of  revelation  proceeds.  While  the 
kingdom  goes  from  strength  to  strength,  its  children 
move  on  from  glory  into  more  complete  glory, — which 
is  only  their  better  knowledge  of  Christ  and  nearer 
likeness  to  Him.  As  they  grow  in  that.  Christian  peo- 
ple will  see  that  the  whole  heavenly  world  is  actually  in 
Christ's  service,.even  when  He  is  on  earth.  You  notice 
that  in  the  text  "  ascending "  is  put  before  "  descend- 


THE  HEAVENS  OPENED.  367 

ing,"  as  if  these  holy  ones  started  from  here,  and 
went  up  first, — which  only  signifies  that  the  person  of 
Clirist,  wherever  that  is,  is  the  real  centre  and  starting- 
point  of  all  spiritual  life  and  spiritual  fellowship.  The 
stream  of  life  flows  outward  and  upward  and  onward 
from  Him.  He  is  the  bond  between  things  terrestrial 
and  things  celestial.  Time  and  space  are  lost  in  that  love 
and  life.  The  going  up  and  going  down  are  but  images 
of  the  eternal  unity,  where  the  true  tabernacle  of  God 
is  with  men,  and  the  separating  and  disordering  power 
of  sin  is  forever  broken  down  and  cast  out.  Hereafter 
ye  shall  see  it,  if  not  now, — ye  who  believe  and  live 
righteously.  The  flow  and  reflow  of  that  blessed  love 
and  beatific  light  shall  be  unceasing, — without  hindrance 
or  cloud, — because  He  fills  the  universe  who  is  all  in  all, 
the  very  fulness  of  God.  And,  as  far  as  we  are  inwardly 
with  Him,  we  are  with  His  angels, — whether  we  see  them 
or  not, — moving  with  their  motion,  climbing  when  they 
climb,hearkening  with  them  to  the  voice  of  His  Word, min- 
istering to  Him  with  them  in  the  satisfying  communion. 
Pass  on  and  observe  the  progress  of  the  doctrine.  Jesus 
has  entered  on  His  public  teaching,  and  is  persuading  a 
politician  to  accept  the  mysteries  of  the  new  kingdom,  in 
the  only  way  they  can  be  received ;  viz.,  on  the  simple 
faith  of  Divine  authority,  coming  in  by  the  new  birth  of 
water  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  They  are  talking  of  regen- 
eration. Our  translation,  by  the  way,  conceals  the 
special  signification.  "  Except  a  man  be  born  again," 
we  read.  But  Christ  says,  "Except  a  man  be  horn 
from  above  {avcodzv),  by  a  power  coming  down  into  him 
from  the  world  of  life  above  him."  Nicodemus  repre- 
sents the  educated  and  fashionable  class : — he  is  one  of 
the  prudent  sceptics  of  a  half-secularized  and  comfortable 
Church ;   and  like  the  Nicodemuses  of  the  trade  and 


368  THE    HEAVENS    OPENED. 

politics  and  learning  of  our  days,  he  is  so  well  satisfied 
and  so  much,  occupied  with  the  life  that  now  is,  that  he 
understands  neither  why  anybody  should  want  any  other, 
or  be  born  into  any  better.  Christ  says  to  him :  O  poor 
rich  man,  your  intellectual  acuteness  and  logical  practice 
have  never  let  you  in  at  the  open  door,  where  this 
spiritual  perceptions  play  at  their  pleasure,  and  God's 
truth  is  known.  "Art  Thou  a  Master  in  Israel,  and 
knowest  not  these  things  ?  We  speak  that  we  do  know, 
and  testify  that  we  have  seen.  ISTo  man  hath  ascended 
up  to  heaven,  but  He  that  came  down  from  heaven, 
even  the  Son  of  Man  which  is  in  heaven."  The  heaven. 
Christ  gives  to  His  followers,  or  into  which  He  immedi- 
ately receives  those  that  join  themselves  to  Him  by 
faith,  is  a  present  heaven,  always  present  where  He  is 
present.  See  how  the  walls  of  time  and  space  spring  back 
and  vanish  away  before  this  One  Lord  of  our  souls.  How 
the  curtains  of  our  little  tent  where  we  tarry  for  a  night 
are  lifted  up,  and  these  outward  heavens  roll  together  as  a 
scroll !  It  would  be  something  to  stand  at  Jacob's  side 
in  the  pasture,  and  see  the  ladder  and  the  angels.  But 
here  we  have  a  grander  privilege.  Heaven  comes  down 
amongst  us,  and  we  are  its  citizens  already.  Are  we 
living  so  ?  Everywhere  the  Living  Head  carries  the 
living  members  with  Him.  He  comes  down  to  us,  that 
we  may  rise  by  Him.  The  ascension  is  immediately 
followed  in  the  actual  ISTew  Testament  order,  as  in  the 
Church's  year,  by  a  sending  down  from  the  place 
whither  Christ  has  gone  before  of  heavenly  gifts  upon 
His  people ;  and  most  of  all  the  one  great  Whit-Sunday 
gift  of  the  Comforter.  These  gifts  are  impartial  and 
universal,  making  Christians  strong,  safe,  and  joyful. 
They  are  the  angels'  footsteps  on  the  ladder,  coming 
down  among  men.     "Unto  every  one  of  us  is  given 


THE    HEAVENS    OPENED. 

grace  according  to  the  measure  of  tlie  gift  of  Christ." 
Every  one.  There  is  but  one  Family,  and  one  Com- 
munion. Our  common  dwellings  and  daily  work  are 
encompassed  with  the  infinite  glory  of  that  heavenly 
presence,  which  once  condescended  to  the  smallest 
duties,  and  washed  poor  men's  feet.  This  is  what  the 
{Son  of  Man  has  done.  This  is  the  transfiguration  of  the 
Christian's  life,  wrought  by  the  coming  of  Christ  in  our 
humanity.     To  believe  it  is  life  eternal. 

There  are  three  great  conclusions  that  leave  their 
blessed  burden  of  religious  consolation  on  our  hearts. 

First,  to  the  believer  heaven  is  actually  ojpened  /  not 
opened  merely  in  the  sense  of  having  a  passage  set  into 
its  wall  through  which,  by  and  by,  our  souls  may  creep 
in  to  get  their  first  acquaintance  with  its  life,  but  open 
for  immediate  intercourse  and  a  personal  communication^ 
if  we  will, — spiritual  gifts  coming  down  to  us  out  of  its 
silent  streets,  as  actual  as  if  we  saw  on  shining  stairs 
those  radiant  bearers  of  them  that  brightened  Jacob's 
dream.  The  full  truth  shines  out.  We  are  not  shut  in 
from  the  influences  of  our  Lord's  Spirit,  here^  where  we 
need  tliem  so  much, — fighting  temptation,  or  bearing 
hardship  and  pain  and  sorrow.  The  heavens  over  us 
are  not  brass,  even  if  the  earth  under  us  seems  some- 
times to  be  iron.  The  fainting  and  weary  soul  of  the 
disciple  has  her  refreshment.  All  her  fresh  springs  are 
near  at  hand.  AVorking  on,  as  w^e  may  often  think, 
to  little  purpose,  sufiering  with  no  clew  to  the  mystery 
of  our  pain,  finding  the  ordinary  path  parched  as  Baca, 
and  our  own  spirits  almost  as  dry,  nevertheless  heaven 
lies  around  us.  Now  and  then  its  dew  moistens  our 
thirst.  We  are  able  to  hold  on  our  way  by  its  invigora- 
tion.  Life  is  not  the  horrible  mockery  it  would  be  if 
this  world  were  all.     The  land  we  are  travelling  through 

24 


370  THE   HEAVENS   OPENED. 

is  not  comfortless  or  forgotten  of  its  Father ;  it  is  a  part 
of  Emmanuel's  country.  "I  will  not  leave  you  comfort- 
less, I  will  come  to  you."  And  so,  with  all  its  sicknesses 
and  graveyards  and  the  crimes  that  are  worse  than  either, 
— this  world  where  we  are,  to  a  Christian  resident  in  it, 
is  an  outer  room  at  least,  and  one  of  the  many  mansions, 
of  God's  house. 

Secondly,  this  opening  of  heaven  to  us,  both  here  in 
these  leginnings  of  the  better  life  and  hereafter,  is  made 
for  us  only  by  one  Lord,  who  is  at  the  same  moment  and 
forever  the  Lord  of  angels  and  the  Friend  and  Master 
of  men, — who  fills  the  universe  with  His  holy  life 
because  He  has  in.  Himself  the  fulness  of  God.  Blessed 
and  glorious  as  the  fact  is  that  in  these  days  of  the  Son 
of  Man,  and  to  the  members  of  His  body,  the  heavens 
stand  open,  He  is  certainly  most  blessed  and  more 
glorious  who  has  opened  thetn.  And  hence  how  plain 
it  is  that  whether  we  are  moved  by  thankfulness  for 
Avhat  He  has  done  for  us,  or  by  a  hope  of  peace  here- 
after, our  first  business  is  to  come  to  Him,,  in  the  only 
way  that  we  can  come,  the  way  He  has  Himself  marked 
out.  If  we  are  in  any  doubt— He  being  out  of  sight — 
whether  the  service  is  genuine.  He  has  shown  us  marks 
that  we  can  test  it  by.  He  has  left  His  representatives 
among  us,  and  said  distinctly,  "  These  My  poor  people, 
— ignorant  and  forlorn,  sinning  and  sorrowful,  lost,  and 
most  lost  in  not  knowing  that  they  are  lost  at  all, — I 
leave  with  you;  ye  shall  have  them  always  with  you; 
by  this  shall  ye  know  that  ye  have  been  discipled  by 
Me,  if  ye  love  them,  and  love  each  other.  Inasmuch  as 
ye  serve  and  visit  them,  for  My  sake,  because  I  have 
loved  you,  ye  do  it  unto  Me."  Do  that  service,  and  then 
you  are  yourselves  angels  ;  for  angels  are  but  messengers 
and  ministers.     You,  too,  wait  on  the  Son  of  Man,  who 


THE   HEAVENS   OPENED.  371 

has  put  from  Him  the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  the 
temptation  of  bread,  and  the  flattery  of  ambition.  Do 
that,  and  jour  own  feet  climb  the  ladder.  You  ascend 
with  Christ  in  heart  and  mind,  whither  He  goes  before. 
Because  He  lives,  ye  live  also.  No  matter  if,  like  the 
patriarch,  you  have  to  take  the  stones  of  that  place  where 
you  are, — hard  and  cold, — and  lay  them  for  your  pillow, 
— behold,  the  pathway  of  light  opens  up  none  the  less. 
The  angels  travel  it  both  ways  :  they  come  down  bring- 
ing God's  help  as  well  as  go  up  with  the  burden  of  your 
prayers.  You  have  been  given  by  His  Church  to  be 
His,  and  where  He  is  there  you  shall  be,  and  that  is 
your  heaven  and  your  home. 

And  whatever  helps  you  in  Christian  living,  helps 
you  also  to  realize  spiritual  things  more  clearly.  In- 
creased watchfulness  helps,  a  larger  and  freer  faith 
gained  through  the  habitual  exercise  of  the  faith  we 
have  helps ;  so  do  a  pure  and  upright  practice.  Church 
worship,  and  cordial  communions  by  the  Body  and 
Blood.  Prayer  helps,  and  helps  the  more,  the  more 
unaffectedly  and  naturally  and  trustingly  we  use  it ;  for 
nothing,  more  than  these  petitions  and  praises  sent  up- 
ward, with  the  certain  answers  sent  down,  can  be  like 
the  ascending  and  descending  messengers  between  us 
and  our  Lord.  Make  great  ventures  in  that  heavenly 
interchange ;  let  your  supplications  and  your  alms  come 
up  together  before  God,  and  prove  Him  whether,  in  the 
old  image  of  the  prophet,  the  windows  of  heaven  are  not 
open,  pouring  ^''ou  out  blessings^  Live  like  Christ  your 
Brother,  and  Christ  your  risen  King  will  give  you  service 
and  honor  in  His  kingdom.     He  is  Master  and  Lord. 

"  Of  the  angels  He  saith,  He  maketh  His  angels  spirits 
and  His  ministers  a  flame  of  fire.  But  unto  the  Son  He 
saith,  Thy  throne,  O  God,  is  forever  and  ever." 


imPEOFITABLE  GAZTOG-. 

Sunday  after  Ascension, 

'^  Am)  while  they  looked  steadfastly  toward  heaven  as  He  went 
up,  behold,  two  men  stood  by  them  in  white  apparel;  which  also 
said,  Ye  men  of  Gralilee,  why  stand  ye  gazing  up  into  heaven?" 
—Acts  i.  10,  11. 

The  question  put  is  not  a  question  of  curiosity  but  of 
correction.  It  comes  not  from  an  inferior  knowledge 
needing  to  be  enlightened,  but  from  a  liiglier  knowledge 
having  light  to  give.  The  "  two  men  in  white  apparel," 
according  to  the  habit  of  Scripture  language,  are  divine 
messengers.  They  make  a  part  of  the  grand  super- 
natural array  which  the  common  scenery  of  the  earth 
put  on  as  the  Lord  was  leaving  it.  The  supernatural 
is  most  natural ;  just  as,  when  God  makes  His  deepest 
revelations  to  us,  the  mystery  of  faith  becomes  the 
plainest  reason,  and  there  is  nothing  so  irrational  as  not 
to  believe.  The  best  philosophy  is  the  largest.  The 
material  world  without  the  spiritual  is  but  half  a  uni- 
verse. When  we  get  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter, — as 
perhaps  not  all  line  modern  theologies  do, — we  shall  see 
that  there  is  a  spiritual  world  without  us  because  there 
is  a  spiritual  world  within  us ;  that  among  the  laws  of 
the  system  we  live  in  is  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in 
Christ  Jesus, — as  natural  and  orderly  in  its  divine 
operation  as  the  law  of  the  life  of  the  wheat  and  the 


UNPROFITABLE   GAZING.  373 

eagle,  and  that  we  want  the  Church  as  much  as  we 
want  a  house  for  the  body,  and  a  table  for  our  food. 
From  the  entrance  of  the  Saviour  into  the  garden,  the 
night  before  His  crucifixion,  on  through  the  following 
forty-three  days,  the  spiritual  world  and  the  material 
world  seemed  to  have  the  doors  between  them  swung 
open,  and  to  become  one.  So  at  Gethsemane,  so  around 
and  within  the  sepulchre  on  the  morning  of  the  third 
day,  and  so  on  the  mount  at  the  ascension.  If  we  be- 
lieve the  history,  or  credit  the  great  fact  of  the  incarna- 
tion, at  all,  is  not  this  just  as  we  should  expect  ?  He 
in  whom  the  realities  of  both  heaven  and  earth  were 
united  and  embodied ;  He  who  could  say, — even  while 
He  was  here  amongst  us,  handling  this  world  and 
handled  by  it,  hungering  and  sleeping,  aching  and  weep- 
ing, and  working  and  loving,  as  we  do, — "  The  Son  of 
Man  is  now  in  lieaven,"  i.  e.^  has  His  interior  and  secret 
life  abiding  there, — He  is  passing  back  personally  into 
the  unseen  communion,  where  all  His  friends,  down  to 
us  gathered  here  this  morning,  are  to  follow  Him.  You 
ask  me  why  I  believe  in  any  New  Testament  miracles. 
Eecause  I  see  the  greater  miracle  before  me, — Christ  of 
Nazareth, — alive,  grander  tlian  all  this  world's  men,  and 
yet  lowlier,  saying  out  that  He  comes  forth  from  God, 
and  goes  to  God,  and  is  one  with  God,  and  that  no  man 
Cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  Him, — saying  it  as  sim- 
ply as  my  child  shows  me  the  flower  found  in  the  gar- 
den,— ^yet  so  saying  it  that  all  the  scribes  and  proconsuls 
and  philosophers  and  critics  of  eighteen  hundred  years 
have  not  been  able  to  break  the  authority,  or  explain  the 
secret : — this  more  than  all  else,  tlfe  best  "  evidence," 
is  why  I  believe,  and  cannot  help  believing.  Surely  it 
will  be  nothing  strange  if  the  common  order  is  dis- 
turbed to  let  a  higher  one  in ;  if  this  striking  together 


374  TJNPKOriTABLE   GAZING. 

of  the  two  spheres  sets  free  the  life  that  lives  in  the  one 
as  well  as  in  the  other.  For  the  time,  either  the  film  by 
which  human  eyes  are  ordinarily  holden  is  thinned,  or 
else  the  veil  that  hangs  before  the  mysteries  of  the  holy 
place  is  lifted  up ; — and  who  knows  but  these  are  really 
only  two  different  expressions  of  one  and  the  same 
fact  ? — so  that  the  home  of  the  Christian  family  below 
and  the  home  of  the  Christian  family  above  appear, — as 
they  actually  are, — opening  into  one  another. 

We  go  to  the  mount  of  the  ascension,  my  friends,  thus 
to  bring  back  help  for  our  life,  in  the  lower  levels  where 
we  are  living  it,  this  week,  and  henceforth. 

Hemember  that  this  question,  "  Why  stand  ye  gazing 
up?"  is  the  first  thing  in  the  order  of  events,  and  in  the 
Bible  narrative,  after  the  closing  of  Christ's  earthly 
ministry.  Only  a  little  breathing  space  was  to  be  given 
them  first  to  gather  up  their  energies;  and  even  that 
was  not  to  be  an  interval  of  idleness.  They  were  to  go 
at  once  to  Jerusalem,  as  the  chosen  head-quarters  of  the 
great  warfare  for  the  world's  conversion,  and  their  waiting 
there  was  to  be  like  the  waiting  of  the  still  midsummer 
elements,  before  the  mountain  winds  sweep  down  and 
the  tongues  of  fire  leap  out, — a  busy  waiting, — a  prepara- 
tion for  this  long  campaign  of  many  ages.  They  were 
to  occupy  the  ten  days  from  Ascension  to  Pentecost, 
with  its  mighty  wind  and  flame,  in  making  ready  inces- 
santly for  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  inaugurate 
their  work.  They  were  to  be  earnest  and  constant 
in  prayer  and  praise.  They  were  to  read  and  settle  in 
their  minds  the  definite  doctrines  and  precise  directions 
their  Master  had  committed  to  them  during  the  forty 
days,  pertaining  to  the  constitution  and  discipline  of  the 
new  kingdom  they  were  to  set  up  among  men.  They 
were  to  fasten  and  cement  the  bonds  of  a  visible  unity 


UNPROFITABLE    GAZING.  375 

and  worsliip  between  the  members  of  the  body,  because, 
it  is  written,  they  continued  "  with  one  accord^^  in  their 
"  prayer  and  supplication."  Especially  they  were  to  fill 
up  the  vacant  place  in  the  apostolate,  made  by  the 
defection  of  the  traitor,  with  the  formality  of  a  solemn 
election.  I^othing  could  be  done  till  the  organization 
was  complete,  after  the  pattern  shown  in  the  mount. 

Thus  their  business  had  been  marked  out  clearly 
before  them,  as  every  Christian's  business  is  clearly 
marked  out  before  him  from  the  time  that  his  baptismal 
and  confirmation  vows  are  laid  upon  him  and  the  Spirit 
is  given  him,  onward.  But  how  is  it  ?  The  apostles  are 
not  turning  to  that  business ;  they  are  still  resting  in  a 
kind  of  sentimental  trance  between  their  commission 
and  their  ministry.  The  eleven  had  not  yet  com- 
prehended the  new  duty  of  the  hour,  because  they 
had  not  turned  forward  from  the  past  to  the  future. 
They  were  living  as  some  Christians  do  nowadays, — in 
their  feelings  more  than  in  their  convictions  and  their 
will,  in  fruitless  memories  not  in  daring  hopes, — eyes 
turned  towards  the  sky  where  a  past  glory  had  vanished, 
not  with  their  hands  turned  faithfully  towards  the  men 
for  whom  that  Master  had  hecome  a  man  and  had  died. 
Indulged  any  longer,  this  would  become  a  mere  life  of 
religious  sentiment,  not  a  life  of  religious  service, — and 
so  not  a  healthy  life  at  all.  How  long  they  had  been 
gazing  up  into  heaven  w^e  are  not  told ;  it  may  have 
been  minutes,  it  may  have  been  hours.  At  any  rate,  it 
required  a  voice  from  God  to  rouse  them  and  send  them 
to  their  work.  That  proved  to  be  with  them,  as  it  always 
has  since  and  always  will  with  useful  Christians,  a  life 
of  intense,  incessant,  laborious  activity :- the  daily  work 
that  witnesses  for  Christ, — Christ  that  died ;  Christ  that 
is  risen ;  Christ  that  ascended  and  ever  liveth  to  make 


376  UNPROFITABLE   GAZING. 

intercession  ;  Christ  in  His  eternal  humanity ;  Christ  in 
the  heart  of  His  Chnrch. 

If  those  eleven  men  that  had  companied  so  long  with 
Christ  needed  to  be  startled  out  of  a  false  indulgence  in 
the  mere  idle  luxury  of  feeling,  most  of  us  certainly  need 
it  much  more.  It  makes  the  whole  matter  real  to  our 
sympathies  to  watch  the  gradual  unfolding  and  ripening 
of  the  full  measure  and  stature  of  manhood, — which  is 
likeness  to  Christ, — in  men  that  had  just  our  tempera- 
ments, our  weaknesses,  and  the  same  inward  and  outward 
difficulties  to  contend  wdth  that  we  have.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  if  these  disciples  that  we  now  rightly  call 
saints, — James  and  John,  Peter  and  Thomas,  Philip  and 
Matthew, — were  to  appear  in  our  cotemporary  society, 
as  they  were  at  any  point  in  their  biography  previous 
to  the  Day  of  Pentecost,  we  should  be  surprised  at  their 
resemblance  to  the  men  we  met  in  these  streets  yesterday ; 
and  after  that  time  the  visible  difference  would  lie  chiefly 
in  their  having  a  more  single-hearted  and  enthusiastic 
devotion  to  Christ  than  the  men  that  we  are  accustomed 
to  see.  It  must  have  been  meant  to  be  so,  or  they 
would  not  have  been  chosen  from  the  average  social 
condition  and  ordinary  associations  as  they  were.  Their 
very  faults  and  doubts  are  encouraging,- when  we  see 
how  steadily  they  struggled  against  them  and  rose  over 
them;  how,  instead  of  fostering  doubt,  and  growing 
ridiculously  vain  over  their  scepticism,  as  some  frivolous 
deniers  do, — as  if  to  put  self-will  before  God's  authority 
were  some  mark  of  intellectual  vigor,  instead  of  a  wrong 
to  intellect  and  heart  alike, — they  rather  longed  for  faith, 
crying,  "  Lord  I  believe,  help  Thou  mine  unbelief  ;  and 
when  we  see  how  patient  their  Lord  was  with  them,  so 
long  as  He  saw  sincerity  and  the  germs  of  a  genuine  truth 
in  them.    So  in  this  particular  case :  a  mother  is  not  more 


UNPEOFITABLE   GAZING.  377 

gentle  with  the  lingering  or  straying  steps  of  the  child 
she  attends  along  the  street  than  the  heavenly  Master  was 
with  these  apostles,  who  were  letting  their  personal  feel- 
ings detain  them  from  their  appointed  task.  Probably 
our  personal  religious  preferences  and  pleasures,  our 
tastes  for  some  emotional  stimulus  or  intellectual  enter, 
tainment  in  religion,  are,  in  kind,  to  us,  very  much  what 
the  absorption  in  Christ's  merely  external  presence  was 
to  them.  It  is  something  that  must  be  put  aside  as  soon 
as  it  interferes  with  the  more  substantial  business  of 
carrying  Christ's  truth  ont  in  self-denying  habits  into 
the  living  world.  I  hear  a  man  say  it  makes  him  "  feel 
better  "  to  say  his  prayers ;  so  far  so  good ;  but  how  far 
does  the  good  feeling  go,  and  the  power  of  the  prayer 
keep  him  company,  as  a  law  of  regulation  to  his  lips  and 
a  purifier  of  his  conduct  and  conversation,  among  the 
people  that  he  meets  who  tempt  him  and  try  him  ? 
I  was  reading  lately  in  the  life  of  one  of  the  most  spot- 
less and  brilliant  of  modern  religious  devotees  and  ora- 
tors,— from  whose  eminent  honor  in  breaking  up  the  tame 
monotony  of  the  prevalent  continental  piety  nothing 
ought  to  be  detracted, — Lacordaire, — this  remark,  and 
it  is  mentioned  by  the  biographer  as  a  sign  of  high  per- 
fection :  "  I  desire  to  be  remembered  only  as  one  who 
believed,  who  loved,  and  who  prayed."  Well,  it  is  true 
the  Son  of  Man  has  not  yet  on  the  earth  so  much  believ- 
ing, loving,  and  praying  that  these  graces  can  be  over- 
valued; but  why  say  only  these?  Taking  the  world 
around  us  as  it  is,  ought  there  not  to  be  an  equal  desire 
to  honor  the  Lord  in  an  active  following  of  His  steps  and 
proclaiming  Him  in  life?  Taking  Christianity  as  it  is, 
must  not  a  religious  system  which  truly  represents  it  be 
as  conspicuous  for  its  action  as  the  mediaeval  Church  was 
for  its  contemplation,  or  the  Wesleyan  for  its  emotion,  or 


378  UNPROFITABLE   GAZING. 

the  Puritan  for  its  introspection  ?  We  need  never  be 
afraid  that  in  that  hearty  and  holy  fidelity  to  Christ  we 
shall  lack  His  real  presence.  Invisible  to  sight  He  will, 
in  the  constant  freshening  of  the  disciple's  living  heart 
through  the  doing  of  His  will,  be  only  the  more  present 
to  His  faith. 

And  this  is  the  other  requirement  contained  in  the 
angel's  question.  The  eleven,  we  may  say,  are  dropped 
suddenly  from  their  high  privilege  to  the  same  position 
with  ourselves.  They  must  walk,  henceforth,  as  you 
and  I  here  must,  not  by  the  light  of  an  outward  leader, 
but,  what  is  a  great  deal  better,  by  a  secret  and  steadfast 
trust  in  Him  who  is  forever  with  us  by  an  inward  pos- 
session, by  His  gifts  and  ordinances  in  His  Church,  by 
His  intercession  within  the  veil.  There  is  for  all  of  us 
also  a  "  Jerusalem,"  a  "  Judaea,"  a  "  Samaria,"  if  not  an 
"  uttermost  part  of  the  earth," — some  well-dressed  city 
with  its  ragged  fringe  of  want  and  wickedness,  some 
country  district  with  its  neglected  and  untrained  fami- 
lies, some  sophisticated  brain  that  has  gone  astray  from 
the  old  standards  and  home  of  the  Faith  and  set  up  its 
Gerizim  rivalry, —  some  that  you  can  minister  to  by 
your  charity  and  win  back  by  your  witnessing,  if  that 
witnessing  is  only  as  zealous  as  Peter's,  and  as  patient 
as  Paul's,  and  as  loving  as  John's.  They,  no  more  than 
you,  "  by  their  own  power  "  or  holiness,  made  any  lame 
creature  leap  and  walk ;  it  was  by  a  JN^ame  that  is  as 
ready  to  be  taken  on  your  tongue  as  theirs,  as  mighty 
for  you  as  for  them,  and  through  a  faith  in  that  Name 
w'hich  you  can  have  without  measure,  though  now  you 
see  Him  not. 

If,  then,  the  question  of  the  heavenly  men  be  put  into 
some  paraphrase  for  ourselves  here,  this  would  be  its  im- 
port.    Reduce  your  privileges  to  Christian  practice,  and 


UNPROFITABLE   GAZING.  379 

your  faith  to  action.  Life  is  not  given  us  for  specula- 
tion, or  gazing,  or  mere  deliglit,  even  though  the  rehsh 
be  rehgious, — not  for  reverie  and  dreaming,  even  though 
it  were  the  reverie  of  devotion,  or  a  dream  of  Paradise. 
This  world,  our  own  little  corner  of  it,  wants  sacrifice 
and  labor,  running  feet  and  open  hands,  busy  thoughts 
and  gentle  tongues, — all  for  Christ  and  the  honor  of 
His  Church.  The  world's  ways  are  not  clean ;  there  is 
too  much  oppression  of  the  weak  by  the  strong,  of  the 
fatherless  and  widow  by  cunning  and  power,  of  the 
nobler  spirit  in  man  by  the  meaner  senses  of  him. 
There  is  too  much  cruelty  in  its  habitations ;  too  much 
darkness  on  its  face ;  too  much  filth  on  its  breast. 
Come  and  work  for  it.  Its  surface  is  rough,  and  wants 
much  levelling  down  and  casting  up  to  make  it  smooth 
for  the  Messiah's  feet.  Believe  in  Him,  and  for  this 
end.  Confess  Him  before  men,  to  follow  Him  in  these 
pathways  among  the  multitude;  worship  Him  in  sin- 
cerity, that  you  may  gain  inward  power  and  love  and 
light  and  grace  for  this  faithful  witnessing  from  on 
high.  Wait  for  Him  by  watching  at  the  gate,  by  work- 
ing in  the  field.  Why  stand  ye  gazing  up  into  heaven  ? 
Without  departing  in  the  least  from  the  direct  force 
of  the  text  we  find  in  it,  thirdly,  a  demand,  on  divine 
authority,  that  our  Christian  life,  as  to  its  inward  supplies 
and  the  steady  operation  of  its  energies,  should  be 
independent  of  any  particular  external  support,  so  that 
it  may  be  only  the  more  completely  and  religiously 
dependent  on  God  himself.  Not  that  we  are  to  cast 
away  any  outward  prop  so  long  as  God's  providence 
holds  it  in  its  place  and  comforts  us  by  letting  us  lean 
upon  it;  but  that  we  should  not  be  perplexed  or  dis- 
heartened when  any  such  help  that  has  been  familiar  to 
us  is  taken  away  by  Him,  or  enfeeble  ourselves  by  letting 


380  UNPROFITABLE    GAZING. 

our  integrity,  or  onr  purity,  or  our  prayers  depend  on  it 
instead  of  depending  directly  on  Ilim.  It  would  be  great- 
ly useful  to  us  to  take  it  up  as  a  matter  of  careful  and 
honest  inquiry,  how  far  our  Christian  character  would 
be  undiminished  and  unhindered  by  the  striking  away 
from  it  of  all  human  safeguards.  Try  it  to-day  upon 
yourself.  Take  out  all  the  considerations  of  social 
respectability  and  the  good  opinion  of  others,  especially 
of  those  to  whom  you  have  a  seltish  motive  for  appearing 
well ;  take  out  all  reference  to  the  effect  of  a  moral  or 
a  religious  standing,  or  your  business  success,  or  the 
accomplishment  of  your'  professional  ends ;  take  out  the 
check  imposed  on  your  worse  propensities  by  the  dread 
of  domestic  misery,  of  public  disgrace,  or  of  a  loss  of 
confidence;  let  go  prudence,  self-preservation,  fear,  in- 
terest; part  with  all  those  manifold  and  half-conscious 
restraints  that  are  piled  up  about  your  religious  perform- 
ances,— the  current  proprieties  that  bolster  up  your 
invalid  virtue ;  in  short,  let  the  simple  allegiance  of  your 
soul  to  God  stand  out  alone,  unshielded,  undraped, 
unbraced  by  any  mortal  device  or  accessory ;  how  much 
of  it  would  there  be  left  ?  how  staunch  and  steadfast 
would  it  stand  ?  how  long  would  it  hold  out  ?  how  con- 
stant would  be  your  worship  here  ?  how  spotless  and  un- 
bending your  warfare  with  "  the  unspiritual  god  of  this 
world  "  ?  Oh  for  the  rooted  life,  the  grounded  principle, 
the  settled  faith !  So  we  are  told  of  an  old  Christian 
hero, — and  it  is  true  of  them  all, — that  the  secret  of  his 
spiritual  greatness  was  that  he  inwardly  united  himself 
to  the  cross,  made  it  through  life  "  his  refuge,  his  remedy, 
his  passion  "  ;  and  that  the  cross  which  he  upheld,  of  it  he 
was  upholden^  until  it  became  part  of  his  very  frame  and 
structure,  even  as  the  old  fighter  of  the  northern  myth- 
ology "  felt  his  arm  and  sword  grow  together  in  the 


UNPROFITABLE   GAZING.  381 

combat,  welded  into  one  by  the  blood  that  oozed  from 
his  wounds,  and  then  knew  that  every  blow  he  dealt 
told  sure."  IS'o  character  is  perfectly  sure  till  it  has  this 
mystical  interlocking  and  inrooting  in  the  living  sac- 
rifice. 

There  is  no  danger,  my  friends,  that  our  eyes  or  our 
hearts  will  be  turned  too  much  upwards,  heavenwards, — 
provided  we  look  there,  in  faith  and  prayer,  for  the  light 
and  the  strength  to  do  our  Christian  service  here.  At 
present  this  is  our  place ;  and  the  judgment  before  us  is 
a  judgment  for  deeds  done  in  the  body.  Let  us  waste 
no  time  in  vain  regrets  for  what  we  have  lost,  or  in 
equally  vain  longings  for  what  we  cannot  have,  or  what 
would  only  dwarf  and  enfeeble  us  if  we  could.  These 
eleven  men,  when  they  were  bidden  to  stop  gazing  into 
heaven  and  go  to  their  work  were  not  turned  away  from 
heavenly  things  to  earthly  things, — very  far  from  that. 
It  was  exactly  the  opposite.  They  were  to  stop  looking 
into  the  air,  that  by  a  truer  and  God-appointed  road 
they  might  travel,  in  God's  time,  higher  up  into  the 
Christian  heaven.  They  were  to  rouse  themselves  from 
a  dream,  that  they  might  work  out  their  salvation  and 
the  salvation  of  the  world.  They  were  to  cease  wasting 
their  time  on  the  empty  cloud  through  which  the 
Saviour's  form  had  gone,  that  they  rather  might  find 
and  follow  and  possess  forever  the  living  Saviour  him- 
self, in  doing  by  faith  the  substantial  service  of  His  love, 
for  His  sake. 

To  that  end,  the  present  line  of  living,  however 
agreeable  and  prosperous,  the  present  residence  or  occu- 
pation, however  delightful,  or  the  present  apparent 
helps,  however  prized,  as  soon  as  they  become  tempters 
to  sluggishness,  must  be  given  up, — a  sacrifice  to  Him 
whose  sacrifice  for  us  is  the  only  assurance  of  life.     All 


382  UNPKOFrrABLE   GAZING. 

true  religious  power  and  progress  are  attained  by 
frequent  breakings  up  of  familiar  and  dangerous  securi- 
ties, bj  moving  forth  away  from  them  into  less  agreeable 
surroundings,  less  easy  roads,  less  sweet-tasting  •  diet. 
"  Why  stand  ye  gazing  np  into  heaven  ? "  Hence  God's 
personal  providence  with  us  is  continually  pushing  us  oh, 
loosening  our  feet,  changing  the  scene,  displacing  one 
or  another  scheme,  or  vision,  or  staff,  or  companion. 
He  does  it  for  what  he  would  make  of  us, — better  men, 
— and  for  the  farsighted  love  wherewith  He  loves  us. 
He  does  it  because  He  will  not  let  our  feet  cleave  to  the 
dust,  our  hearts  grow  thin  and  weak,  our  faith  dwindle 
and  die  out ; — the  dropping  of  every  such  dear  delusion 
liberates  our  real  life,  increases  our  durable  riches,  re- 
plenishes our  strength,  sets  us  forward,  lifts  us  up.  How 
many  of  you  here  are  satisfied  as  you  are  ?  How  many 
have  not  some  secret  suffering  and  sorrow,  either  for 
what  you  have  had  and  lost,  or  else  for  something  that 
you  have  not  and  are  longing  to  reach  ?  Answer  that, 
and  I  shall  not  need  to  argue  with  you  about  this  way  of 
pain  and  parting  being  God's  common  way.  That  we 
do  not  see  it  oftener  is  only  because  we  are  blind  to  the. 
deeper  working  of  His  hands,  bent  upon  our  little  plans, 
and  too  eager  for  ourselves. 

The  summing  up  of  the  whole  lesson,  this  morning, 
then,  is  this :  Inquire  whether  the  attitude  of  your  soul 
is  visionary  or  practical;  your  great  aim  in  life  self- 
indulgent  or  self-sacrificing;  your  daily  desire  and  en- 
deavor the  mere  enjoyment  of  the  hours,  however  re- 
fined, or  the  ready  going  upon  Christ's  errand,  the  faith- 
ful witnessing  to  Him,  everywhere,  always,  be  it  near  or 
far,  be  it  easy  or  hard,  be  it  with  human  sympathies 
sustaining  you  or  in  the  solitude  of  that  obedience  which 
treads  the  winepress  all  alone.     On   this  it   depends 


UNPROFITABLE   GAZING.  383 

whether  you  waste  your  life's  best  faculty  and  vision 
upon  a  cloud,  and  then  sink,  a  lost  thing,  into  the  dark, 
or  whether  you  shall  be  endowed  with  immortal  power 
from  on  high,  and  be  taken  up  also  yourself,  into  the 
Eternal  Light,  there  continually  to  dwell. 


LEADINGS  OF  THE  HOLY  SPIEIT. 

Whitsun-Day, 

*'I  WILL  lead  them  in  paths  that  they  have  not  known;  I  will 
make  darkness  light  before  them,  and  crooked  things  straight." 
— Isaiah  xlii.  16. 

"As  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  they  are  the  sons  of 
God." — Romans  viii.  14. 

Both  Isaiah  and  St.  Paul  are  speaking  of  good  men, — 
men  that  believe,  and  pray,  and  work,  from  the  only  right 
motive.  Both  affirm  the  reality  of  a  very  intimate  and 
tender  connection  between  such  men  and  God,  existing 
constantly,  even  here  in  this  world.  There  is  a  pervad- 
ing, loving  care  on  the  one  side,  and  a  trusting  depend- 
ence on  the  other  side.  There  is  a  leading  and  a  heing 
led, — with  a  privilege  mysteriously  grand  and  gracious 
growing  out  of  that  relation  on  the  part  of  those  who 
are  led.  So  far  the  two  writers  agree.  Bat  every 
thoughtful  reader  is  still  aware  of  a  certain  difference 
in  the  impression  coming  to  him  as  he  reads.  The 
prophet  says,  speaking  in  Jehovah's  name,  "  I  will  lead 
them  in  paths  that  they  have  not  known ;  I  will  make 
darkness  light  before  them,  and  crooked  things  straight." 
The  Apostle  says,  "  As  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit 
of  God,  they  are  the  sons  of  God."  Each  declares  a 
divine  promise.  What  is  it,  then,  that  distinguishes  the 
second  from  the  first? 


LEADINGS   OF  THE   HOLY   SPIEIT.  385 

Isaiali  represents  tliat  more  advanced  and  ripened 
stage  of  religious  culture,  in  the  elder  Church,  where 
the  original  meaning  of  the  revelation  at  Mount  Sinai 
had  begun  to  come  out  into  a  clearness  approaching  that 
of  the  Gr03pel-daj.  The  dawn  was  mounting  into  the  skj, 
though  the  day-star  had  not  yet  quite  risen.  The  con- 
ception of  God's  character  had  become,  at  least  among 
the  purest  minds,  more  simple  and  satisfying.  There 
was  more  of  the  graciousness  of  His  fatherhood  min- 
gling with  and  balancing  the  fearfulness  of  His  sov- 
ereignty. The  idea  of  a  free  forgiveness  to  the  believ- 
ing and  penitent  heart,  which  is  the  central  comfort  of 
Christianity,  was  modifying  the  old  regimen  of  inex- 
orable statutes  and  animal  sacrifices.  Men  were  getting 
underneath  the  letter  to  the  spirit  of  the  command- 
ments, and  the  nation  that  had  bowed  its  head  so  long 
over  the  stone  tables  of  the  Law  began  to  feel  the  fresh- 
ening fore-tokens  of  the  pentecostal  wind  which  swept 
through  the  chamber  at  Jerusalem  amid  the  tongues  of 
fire.  It  heard  something  from  the  lips  of  those  later 
prophets  that  sounded  like  the  anthem  of  peace  and 
good-will  at  Bethlehem.  You  have  only  to  read  the 
first  chapter  of  Isaiah's  Book  to  see  this,  with  its  con- 
trast of  the  fat  and  blood  of  beasts  with  the  inward 
washings,  the  new  heart,  the  justice  and  liberty,  the 
snow-white  cleansing  of  the  scarlet  sins  which  were 
to  come.  Worship  had  become  more  spiritual.  More 
confiding  impressions  of  the  unseen  Father  were  cer- 
tainly stealing  into  the  worshipper's  soul.  Hence  comes 
that  promise  of  divine  guidance,  personal  and  gentle, 
wliich  breathes  itself  into  words  so  beautiful  in  the  text. 
"  I  will  lead  them  in  paths  that  they  have  not  known  ; 
I  will  make  darkness  light  before  them,  and  crooked 
things   straight."     There    cannot    be   a  human    heart 

25 


386  LEADINGS   OF  THE   HOLY   SPIRIT. 

among  us  that  is  not  moved  by  these  assurances,  because 
there  is  no  one  among  us  all  that  has  not  found  out  by 
rough  experience  that  there  are  crooked  things  in  his 
life  which  7ieed  to  be  made  straight,  and  dark  places 
which  need  to  be  made  light ;  that  there  are  spots  where 
the  ways  part,  with  no  guide-post,  leaving  the  judg- 
ment and  conscience  perplexed,  and  where  one  is  al- 
most certain  there  must  be  paths  better  than  that  one 
he  is  walking  in,  safer  if  not  smoother,  and  running  to 
a  better  end.  This  common  need  of  heavenly  leading 
puts  us  into  one  company  with  those  wandering  He- 
brews, and  makes  us  prize  the  promise  that  was  so 
comforting  to  them. 

In  fact,  if  we  inquire  of  our  own  nature,  we  shall  prob- 
ably learn  that  this  instinct  which  desires  and  follows 
leadership,  even  apart  from  religion,  is  nearly  universal 
with  men,  and  that  religion  takes  advantage  of  it  and 
employs  it  to  train  our  best  attachments  and  confidences 
Tip  to  heaven.  With  all  his  self-reliance  and  self-will 
man  likes  to  trust  and  follow  a  leader, — identifying  him- 
self with  his  strength  and  skill,  and  making  him,  as  it 
were,  a  part  of  his  own  foresight  and  individual  energy. 
It  appears  among  bands  of  youth,  in  those  literary  and 
athletic  games  which  anticipate  the  serious  competitions 
and  conflicts  of  maturer  years.  It  appears  in  tribes  of 
travellers,  in  exploring  parties  and  discovering  voyages, 
in  political  combinations  and  social  reforms,  and  especially 
in  the  military  spirit  which  makes  the  general  to  be. 
half  the  army,  gathers  up  the  temper  of  a  hundred 
thousand  soldiers  into  the  breast  of  one  captain  of  cap- 
tains, sways  them  all  with  the  courage  of  his  command, 
and  in  some  manner  spreads  out  the  personalitiy  of  his 
own  will  till  it  reaches  to  the  remotest  private  in  the 
ranks.     This  natural  deference  to  a   master-spirit,  like 


LEADINGS   OF  THE   HOLY   SPIRIT.  387 

the  natural  filial  sentiment,  or  the  natural  feeling  of 
hope  and  veneration  and  loyalty,  is  one  of  the  prepared 
elements  in  us  on  which  revealed  religion  lays  hold,  to  ele- 
vate and  sanctify  it,  and  then  to  bind  us  by  it  more  firmly 
and  blessedly,  in  the  bands  of  a  spiritual  piety,  to  God. 
The  next  step  in  the  doctrine,  however,  rises  far  up 
above  all  our  natural  and  human  ties ;  for  it  shows  us 
this  guiding  love  of  the  heavenly  Father  as  entirely 
independent  of  anything  that  we  think,  or  do,  or  feel. 
It  leads  us  in  paths  that  we  had  not  known.  The 
love  is  undeserved  and  condescending.  It  comes  out 
to  us  before  we  go  after  it.  It  is  like  a  hand  of 
compassion  reached  down  to  us  out  of  an  inpenetrable 
cloud, — a  seat  of  mercy  where  our  sight  cannot  pene- 
trate or  any  claim  of  ours  be  held.  "  I  will  lead  them 
in  paths  that  they  have  not  known."  It  deals  with  us 
as  a  mother  handles  a  child  just  beginning  to  know 
only  her  face  or  her  voice.  A  little  farther  on  the 
same  prophet  clothes  the  thought  in  other  phrases  of 
equal  beauty.  "  There  is  no  God  besides  Me ;  I  have 
called  thee  by  thy  name,  I  have  surnamed  thee ;  I 
girded  thee  though  thou  hast  not  known  Me.'^  We 
were  too  infantile,  in  the  childhood  of  our  spiritual  life, 
to  know  God  when  He  took  us  up,  put  His  arms  around 
us,  quieted  the  fierce  cry  of  our  passions,  and  carried  us 
to  Christian  rest.  There  must  have  been  a  great  deal  in 
the  national  memories  and  the  daily  temple  thanksgiv- 
ings of  those  people  to  lend  a  vivid  significancy  to  these 
words.  They  were  always  thinking  of  the  time  when 
they  were  all  together  but  a  weak  bondman  in  Egypt,  and 
the  eternal  kindness  came  down  to  unfasten  their  fetters, 
and  bore  them,  as  their  great  earthly  leader  says,  "  on 
eagles'  wings  "across  the  wilderness.  Every  man  has 
been  treated  like  that  Israel.    Who  of  us  cannot  recall 


388  LEADINGS    OF   THE    HOLY    SPIRIT. 

some  trying  time  when  the  utter  dismay  came  over  him 
of  not  knowing  what  way  to  take, — the  sun  gone  down, 
human  helpers  away  or  feeble,  human  advisers  indif- 
ferent or  undecided?  But  God  was  there  before  us,  and 
•when  w^e  waited  on  Him  we  found  He  was  waiting  for 
us.  It  is  when  we  are  least  capable  that  His  love  is 
most  busy  in  our  behalf,  and  when  we  are  farthest  from 
being  sufficient  to  ourselves  that  His  preventing  good- 
ness comes  in  ;  and  then,  very  often,  the  one  path  which, 
of  all  those  that  opened,  was  the  least  inviting,  was  the 
one  into  which  He  led  our  unwilling  feet. 

I  just  used  the  words  His  preventing  goodness.  It  is 
an  Old  Testament  expression  which  has  been  preserved 
in  the  old  English  of  the  Prayer  Book, — as  we  pray  in 
the  Easter  collect  for  God's  special  grace  "  preventing  " 
us.  It  is  a  curious  example  of  the  degradation  of  the 
meaning  of  words  that  whereas  to  our  forefathers  the 
term  "  preventing,"  i.  e.,  literally  going  he/ore^  bore  with 
it  the  idea  of  God's  going  before  His  children  only  te 
do  them  good,  to  open  their  way  and  help  them  on,  to 
guide  them  and  attract  them  forward,  in  the  modern 
usage  an  exactly  opposite,  a  harsh  and  hindering  sense, 
has  been  put  upon  the  same  term, — to  "  prevent "  mean- 
ing now  to  keep  back,  to  distract,  to  fail  and  baffle  one 
in  his  purpose.  We  return  now  on  Whitsun-day  to  the 
old  and  gracious  acceptation  :  "  Let  thy  tender  mercies 
prevent  us."  God  goes  invisibly  before  His  child,  like 
the  good  shepherd  of  the  Eastern  pastures  before  the 
feeblest  and  timidest  of  his  flock,  to  reassure  the  alarmed 
and  doubting,  to  take  the  briars  and  stones  and  to  scare 
the  beasts  out  of  the  way,  to  straighten  what  is  crooked, 
to  hold  a  lamp  over  the  dark  passages  among  the  rocks, 
to  lead  those  that  have  faith  enough  to  be  willing  to  be 
led  in  paths  that  they  have  not  known. 


LEADINGS    OF   THE   HOLY    SPIRIT.  389 

From  this  promise  we  pass  over  to  that  given  iis  by 
St.  Paul.  "  For  as  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God 
they  are  the  sons  of  God."  We  see  at  once  that  there 
is  an  advance  into  another  plane  of  religious  thought. 
Instead  of  Jehovah  we  are  told  of  "the  Spirit," 
"the  Holy  Ghost,"  and  that  the  leading  is  by  Him. 
Then,  instead  of  being  taught  of  a  mere  outward  change 
wrought  by  this  leading,  as  in  the  material  world  around 
lis, — paths  opened,  the  dark  made  light,  and  the  crooked 
straight,  lo !  there  is  a  transformation  of  our  whole 
interior  nature  and  condition.  They  who  were  before 
merely  creatures  and  servants,  or  children  only  as  by 
creation,  become  children  in  a  new  and  profounder  way, 
as  coming  into  a  spiritual  union  and  a  certain  filial, 
birthright  likeness  to  God.  IS'othing  is  denied  or  taken 
away  that  Isaiah  had  said,  only  much  is  added, — as 
Christ  said  of  the  entire  Gospel-system  when  compared 
with  the  old  Law ; — not  a  particle  is  destroyed,  but  all  is 
fulfilled, — i.  e.,  filled  fall,  rounded  out,  or  made  com- 
plete. To  be  led  of  the  Spirit,  as  a  Christian  disciple 
is,  is  something  far  richer  and  higher  than  to  be  guided 
on,  in  hope,  and  in  the  day-dawn,  as  the  best  Israelite 
was. 

If  we  ask  what  especially  is  signified  by  being  "led 
by  the  Spirit,"  the  first  part  of  the  answer  depends  on 
the  use  of  words,  as  used  by  a  man,  St.  Paul,  who  uses 
them  with  unsurpassed  precision  and  power.  In  his 
exact  Greek  there  are  two  terms  for  "  leading,"  which 
correspond  respectively,  in  a  striking  way,  to  these  two 
views  I  have  presented,  as  conveyed  in  the  two  parts  of 
the  text.  The  one  signifies  a  violent  and  rather  irreg- 
ular act  of  propelling  a  body, — a  driving  or  pushing  on, 
as  by  winds,  or  waves.  This  St.  Peter  uses  when  he 
speaks  of  the  moving  of  the  minds  of  the  Old  Testament 


390  LEADINGS   OF   THE   HOLY   SPIKIT. 

saints  by  the  mind  of  God.  The  other,  employed  in  the 
text,  refers  to  an  even,  constant,  unbroken  force,  acting 
not  less  powerfully  on  the  mind  because  it  acts  gently 
and  steadily : — the  leading  of  a  Spirit  who  abides  always 
at  His  gracious  work  on  the  heart,  in  His  chamber  with- 
in it,  and  does  not  come  and  go.  You  can  illustrate  this 
for  yourselves  by  any  mother  walking  with  a  little  child, 
or  shepherd  with  sheep.  The  hireling,  who  only  follows 
after,  and,  when  the  charge  wanders  or  falls  into  danger, 
hurries  up  and  catches  hold  irregularly,  pushing  the  body 
here  or  there  over  a  hollow  or  through  a  thicket,  does  not 
lead^ — as  that  blessed  Comforter  leads  whom  the  Saviour 
promised  to  send,  choosing  the  tenderest  possible  images 
to  describe  the  gift,  and  especially  insisting,  "He  shall 
abide  with  you  forever,  even  the  Spirit  of  Truth." 
This  is  that  Spirit  whose  coming  into  the  Church  and 
into  the  believer's  heart  we  commemorate  and  celebrate 
to-day. 

What  then  is  the  peculiar  privilege  of  those  who  are 
80  led,  and  are  willing,  in  the  yielding  up  and  surren- 
der of  their  hearts,  to  be  so  led,  by  this  faithful  Spirit 
of  God  ?  They  are  called  by  the  noblest  of  all  titles,  and 
it  declares  the  most  exalted  of  all  honors.  "  They  are 
the  sons  of  God."     Is  this  possible  ?     How  can  it  be  ? 

There  is  One  only-begotten  Son  of  God,  brought 
once  into  the  world,  for  the  one  mediation  and  redemp- 
tion, becoming  also  the  Son  of  Man,  born  of  Mary,  our 
humanity  being  forever  taken  up  into  His  divinity  and 
glorified  by  it.  It  is  only  our  spiritual  imion  with  Him, 
in  a  personal  ingrafting  and  adoption  by  repentance  and 
faith,  water  and  the  Spirit,  that  we,  in  an  accommodated 
and  secondary  sense,  yet  a  most  vital  and  precious  one, 
are  made  also  "sons  of  God."  Our  sonship  to  God 
comes  only  through  Him  who  is  the  Son,  only-begotten 


LEADINGS   OF   THE   HOLY   SPIRIT.  391 

and  dearlj-beloved ;  just  as  through  Him,  our  great 
Kino"  and  Priest,  all  true  Christians  are  said  in  a  sense 
to  become  '^dngs  and  priests  unto  God."  Hence  the 
expressions  "  Spirit  of  God "  and  "  Spirit  of  Christ " 
and  "  Holy  Spirit "  are  often  used  as  equivalent.  Christ 
gives  the  Comforter.  When  He  is  received  into  the 
heart,  ingrafted  there  by  faith,  a  new  blood  pours  itself 
along  the  veins ;  a  new  nature  is  born ;  a  new  man  is 
created, — a  man  of  God,  a  son  of  God,  in  the  image  of 
Christ.  Hence  too,  on  the  name  "  Spirit  of  God," 
wherever  introduced,  there  is  a  kind  of  Gospel  accent, 
— something  that  suggests,  and  is  suggested  by,  the 
mediation  of  Jesus, — an  evangelic  power,  a  sweetness,  a 
richness  and  unction,  altogether  peculiar  to  the  religion 
of  the  Cross. 

Thus,  my  friends,  between  the  two  members  of  the 
text,  Isaiah's  and  St.  Paul's,  both  inspired  from  the 
Word  of  God,  there  is  just  that  difference,  and  just 
that  advance,  that  there  is  between  the  two  systems  or 
dispensations, — between  him  who  might  be  greatest 
born  of  woman  under  the  Law,  like  John  the  Baptist, 
and  him,  as  Jesus  says,  who  is  least  in  the  true  kingdom 
of  heaven ; — the  same  that  there  is  between  the  old 
Jewish  Pentecost,  or  Feast  of  Weeks,  falling  seven 
weeks  after  the  Passover,  and  our  glorious  Whitsun-day, 
or  Christian  Pentecost,  following  at  the  same  interval 
after  our  Lord's  resurrection.  The  one  is  all  that  faith- 
ful men  could  have,  in  the  leading  of  God's  hand,  in 
finding  darkness  made  light,  and  crooked  things  straight, 
without  the  supreme  glory  of  Christ's  manifestation  in 
the  flcsli.  His  sacrifice,  and  all  tlie  Gospel  powers  and 
splendors  of  His  reconciliation.  The  other,  dear  brethren 
in  Christ,  is  what  we  are  permitted,  in  the  wondrous 
mystery  of  God's  grace,  in  His  Gospel  and  His  Church, 


392  LEADINGS    OF   THE   HOLY    SPIRIT. 

to  have  by  our  membership,  our  incorporation  and  son. 
ship  in  Him. 

Here  "  the  Spirit"  is  not  a  mere  influence  exerted  on 
character,  as  by  a  foreign  benefactor ;  it  is  an  inwrought 
and  essential  principle  of  the  believer's  life.  He  is  a 
new  creature,  a  son  (and  the  apostle  in  one  place  makes 
it  still  more  personal  by  saying  that  the  believing  woman 
is  a  daughter)  of  the  Lord  Almighty.  And  as  there  are 
two  New  Testament  terms,  in  the  original,  to  signify 
two  kinds  of  leading,  so  there  are  two  terms  to  signify 
children.  One  has  reference  to  mere  natural  descent  or 
begetting,  irrespective  of  any  tender,  filial  feeling.  The 
other,  used  when  sons  of  God  in  Christ  are  intended, 
inchides  an  affectionate  and  sacred  dependence,  or  loving- 
ness  of  the  child's  and  the  parent's  hearts.  So,  you  are 
more  or  less  influenced^  doubtless,  by  the  life  of  any  emi- 
nently great  and  unselfish  man  whose  biography  you  read, 
or  whose  career  you  watch.  The  force  of  such  an  example 
enters  in  among  the  other  forces  that  mould  a  character. 
But  here,  in  sonship,  there  is  something  deeper  and 
more  interior  than  that.  The  tree  may  take  an  influence 
from  the  sun,  and  that  foreign  influence  tends  to  make 
the  tree  tall,  vigorous,  green,  and  fruitful.  But  the  tree 
is  not  the  child  of  the  sun.  The  tree  gets  the  nature  of 
its  life,  what  makes  up  its  whole  characteristic  quality, 
by  secret  channels  from  a  seed.  If  it  is  altered  at  all, 
afterward,  it  must  be  by  a  graft,  taking  away  the  old 
and  brino:ino^  in  a  new  vital  element.  The  law  of  the 
Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  is  not  merely  an  external  impulse 
giving  us  a  movement  in  a  particular  direction;  it  is 
rather  a  silent,  inward,  secret  element,  transforming, 
regulating,  and  sanctifying  everything;  it  is  j)Oured 
into  the  Church  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  quicken  and 
revive  it,  and  by  secret  visitation,  by  word  and  prayer 


LEADINGS    OF   THE   HOLY    SPIRIT.  393 

and  sacrament,  it  is  granted  to  every  heart  that  seeks 
it. 
V/With  this  comes  a  special  characteristic  of  our  service 
to  Christ.  It  is  not  a  service  of  compulsion  or  restraint, 
rendered  "grudgingly  or  ot  necessity."  That  would  be 
no  Whitsun-day  religion.  It  is  labor  in  a  free  and  joyous 
spirit,  such  as  befits  the  thankful  receivers  of  an  unspeak- 
able gift  in  its  true  character.  It  is  not  done  for  wages, 
in  view  of  a  futm^e  settlement  or  emolument,  still  less  to 
avert  a  future  scourge.  It  is  done  in  liberty,  from  a 
choice  of  the  heart,  and  therefore,  as  all  such  service  is 
done,  with  double  energy  and  ejQaciency.  Wise  em- 
ployers always  select  workmen  that  love  their  work. 
This  distinction  between  sonship  and  servantship  runs 
through  all  that  pertains  to  a  Christian's  obedience. 
God  gives  Himself  to  those  that  are  led  by  His  Spirit. 
It  is  His  highest  gift :  no  other  is  perfect,  and  no  other 
could  satisfy  this  perfect  love. 

And  so  we  are  brought  finally  to  understand  why  it  is 
that  the  apostle,  just  after  he  has  written  these  sublime 
words  of  the  text, — "As  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of 
God,  they  are  the  sons  of  God," — and  before  he  goes  on 
to  write,  "The  Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  our 
spirit,  that  we  are  the  children  of  God,  and  if  children, 
then  heirs,  heirs  of  God  and  joint  heirs  with  Christ, 
that  we  may  be  also  glorified  together,"  puts  in  this  sen- 
tence: "  For  ye  have  not  received  the  spirit  of  bondage 
again  to  fear,  but  ye  have  received  the  spirit  of  adoption, 
whereby  we  cry,  Abba,  Father."  Did  the  question 
ever  arise,  in  reading  this  chapter,  why  that  unusual 
Chaldaic  word,  "Abba,"  is  left  there  untranslated? 
Probably  because,  like  the  familiar  words  in  our  English 
that  are  most  easily  pronounced  by  the  very  youngest 
lips,  it  expresses  the  childlike  feeling  in  the  childlike 


394  LEADINGS   OF   THE   HOLY   SPIRIT. 

form,  and  is  therefore  untranslatable.  St.  Paul,  the 
robust  and  intellectual  man,  would  say  to  us,  "  When 
the  Holy  Spirit  that  Christ  gave,  as  on  this  day, — the 
great  promise  of  the  Father, — has  been  really  welcomed 
in  its  living  and  loving  energy  into  your  hearts,  you  will 
speak  in  your  prayers  to  your  Father  as  little  children 
supplicate  their  parents  from  whom  they  took  their  life, 
and  expect  the  warmest  love"  ;  and  it  is  to  answer  that 
earnest  human  need  that  the  Spirit  was  sent. 

These  sublime  truths,  of  the  higher  offices  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  on  Christian  men,  furnish  a  key  to  the  interpre- 
tation of  a  very  difficult  passage  in  the  second  of  St. 
Peter's  General  Epistles.  His  words  are  these :  "  Grace 
and  peace  be  multiplied  unto  you  through  the  knowledge 
of  God,  and  of  Jesus  our  Lord,  according  as  His  divine 
power  hath  given  unto  us  all  things  that  pertain  unto 
life  and  godliness,  through  the  knowledge  of  Him  that 
hath  called  us  to  glory  and  virtue ;  whereby  are  given 
unto  us  exceeding  great  and  precious  promises,  that  by 
these  ye  7night  he  partakers  of  the  divine  nature^ 
Human  thouglit  can  be  lifted  no  higher  than  that.  It 
carries  us  up  to  the  mysterious  boundary  between  the 
finite  and  the  infinite  mind.  True  Christians  do  become 
*'  partakers  of  the  divine  nature,"  if  not  in  its  essence 
yet  in  its  spiritual  qualities,  in  such  relation  and  measure 
as  the  difference  of  capacity  admits,  not  in  the  infinity 
of  the  attributes  of  deity,  but  in  the  holy  character  and 
pure  afi*ection  that  pervade  their  action.  This  is  the 
actual  sonship  in  which  the  covenanted  and  genuine 
disciple  stands  toward  God.  It  is  not  that  literal  and 
eternal  sonship  in  which  He  is  who  is  "  Begotten  of  the 
Father  before  all  worlds,"  and  the  "  Only-begotten.'' 
But  it  is  obtained  through  Him  ;  we  reach  it  by  the  faith 
which  is  a  spiritual  union  with  Him  ;  it  is  real,  conscious, 


LEADINGS   OF   THE   HOLY   SPIKFr.  396 

practical,  and  transcends  all  other  possible  honors  of  onr 
estate  in  its  glory.  It  is  a  life  going  on  now  in  every 
new-born  and  obedient  heart.  It  brings  iis  into  the 
circle  and  the  sympathy  of  the  privileged  Family.  In 
other  language,  repeatedly  employed  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, it  is  our  ''  adoption," — the  ^*  adoption  of  sons,"  by 
*'  the  spirit  of  adoption  " ;  and  so  great  is  the  inward 
change  wrought  with  the  outward  incorporation  that  it 
is  called  a  second  "  being  born," — born  not  of  corrupti- 
ble seed,  but  of  incorruptible.  You  were  of  the  family 
of  the  flesh  and  its  sellish  impulses  ;  you  are  now  of  the 
family  of  the  Spirit  and  its  holy  constancy.  "  That^ 
which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh,  and  that  which  is  born 
of  the  Spirit  is  Spirit," — and  it  is  the  Spirit  that  accom- 
plishes the  regeneration, — that  Holy  Spirit  which  we 
therefore  praise  and  celebrate  and  magnify  this  day. 
He  came  and  led  us  in  paths  that  we  had  not  known. 
He  made  darkness  light  before  us,  and  crooked  things 
straight.  As  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God, 
yield  themselves  to  that  attraction,  and  are  willing  to 
be  so  re-born  and  re-fashioned, — these  find  it  out.  To 
them  the  blessed,  peaceable  secret  is  opened.  It  opens 
more  and  more  as  they  are  led  on,  till  they  know  as 
they  are  known. 


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